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In our paper, we present the results of the second phase of a study conducted in collaboration between two higher education institutions in Hungary with different types of translator training: a postgraduate (MA) course at the University of Szeged (SZTE), Faculty of Arts, and a postgraduate specialist training course at Pázmány Péter Catholic University, Budapest (PPKE JÁK), Faculty of Law and Political Sciences. At SZTE, students do not have any legal qualifications, while at PPKE JÁK, students are all qualified legal professionals. Our main research question was whether there are significant differences in the quality of legal translations carried out by students with and without legal qualifications. We analyzed and evaluated the global (holistic) quality of the translations using a five-point scale as suggested by Kiraly (1995: 83), and compared types of errors made by the two groups of students with the help of a special error typology. Our results show that students with legal qualifications perform better in terms of both global and analytic indicators, with significantly less errors made in information transfer and in legal register.

In our paper, we present the results of the second phase of a study conducted in collaboration between two higher education institutions in Hungary with different types of translator training: a postgraduate (MA) course at the University of Szeged (SZTE), Faculty of Arts, and a postgraduate specialist training course at Pázmány Péter Catholic University, Budapest (PPKE JÁK), Faculty of Law and Political Sciences. At SZTE, students do not have any legal qualifications, while at PPKE JÁK, students are all qualified legal professionals. Our main research question was whether there are significant differences in the quality of legal translations carried out by students with and without legal qualifications. We analyzed and evaluated the global (holistic) quality of the translations using a five-point scale as suggested by Kiraly (1995: 83), and compared types of errors made by the two groups of students with the help of a special error typology. Our results show that students with legal qualifications perform better in terms of both global and analytic indicators, with significantly less errors made in information transfer and in legal register.

In our paper, we present the results of the second phase of a study conducted in collaboration between two higher education institutions in Hungary with different types of translator training: a postgraduate (MA) course at the University of Szeged (SZTE), Faculty of Arts, and a postgraduate specialist training course at Pázmány Péter Catholic University, Budapest (PPKE JÁK), Faculty of Law and Political Sciences. At SZTE, students do not have any legal qualifications, while at PPKE JÁK, students are all qualified legal professionals. Our main research question was whether there are significant differences in the quality of legal translations carried out by students with and without legal qualifications. We analyzed and evaluated the global (holistic) quality of the translations using a five-point scale as suggested by Kiraly (1995: 83), and compared types of errors made by the two groups of students with the help of a special error typology. Our results show that students with legal qualifications perform better in terms of both global and analytic indicators, with significantly less errors made in information transfer and in legal register.

Most interpretational problems in law pertain to the meaning of words. However, in this paper I address problems caused in Polish courts by grammar (namely: syntax and inflexion) of legal provisions. One can distinguish five main sources of grammatical issues in judicial interpretation of law: syntax of a sentence (i.e. order of words), conjunctive words (i.e. i, lub), punctuation marks (i.e. comma, semicolon, dash), nominal grammatical categories (i.e. number, gender), verbal grammatical categories (i. e. aspect, tense, mood). Traditional Polish canons of interpretation offer no clues on how to deal with such issues, stating only that statutes should be construed in accordance with the rules of grammar. In fact, cases in which such interpretational issues occur, are decided in a highly incoherent manner. The courts tend to feel a tension between grammatical form of a provision and its purpose, function, or other extra-linguistic values. I think the main reason of such controversy is a very limited vision of grammar shared by the courts, stemmed from primary school rather than contemporary linguistic theories.

The paper aims to analyse and compare the interpretative function of legislative history in the judicial activity of the European Court of Justice and Polish courts.

The focus of this paper is centered on the translation of German and Polish court names. Based on a thorough analysis of the translation terms used in legal literature and dictionaries, the author concludes that the court names are often being translated in a way that makes it impossible for the reader to correctly identify the institution in question, thus undermining the comprehensibility of the target texts significantly.

The aim of this paper is to establish the repertoire and distribution of verbal and adverbial exponents of epistemic modality in English- and Polish-language judgments passed by the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) and non-translated judgments passed by the Supreme Court of Poland (SN). The study applies a model for categorizing exponents of epistemicity with regard to their (i) level (high-, medium- and low-level of certainty, necessity or possibility expressed by the markers; primary dimension), (ii) perspective (own vs. reported perspective), (iii) opinion (based either on facts or beliefs) and (iv) time (the embedding of epistemic markers in sentences relating to the past, present or future) (contextual dimensions). It examines the degree of intra-generic convergence of translated EU judgments and non-translated national judgments in terms of the employment of epistemic markers, as well as the degree of authoritativeness of judicial argumentation, and determines whether the frequent use of epistemic markers constitutes a generic feature of judgments. The research material consists of a parallel corpus of English- and Polish-language versions of 200 EU judgments and a corpus of 200 non-translated domestic judgments. The results point to the high salience and differing patterns of use of epistemic markers in both EU and national judgments. The frequent use of high-level epistemic markers boosts the authoritativeness of judicial reasoning.

This paper applies a structured legal-linguistic profiling approach to EU “staff representation bodies” as a way to access domains that lie behind the public face of EU institutions and their texts concerning translation, language and terminology. The study commences with a legal-linguistic analysis of EU texts for references to “staff”, “staff representation” and “employment” in order to identify specific texts and bodies of relevance to the study. This approach leads to two broad categories: staff committees and trade unions. Information is sought from EU institutions about these bodies and their translation and language arrangements, and a list is made of websites available to the general public. These sites are then examined as part of the legal-linguistic profiling approach.

This paper applies a structured legal-linguistic profiling approach to EU “staff representation bodies” as a way to access domains that lie behind the public face of EU institutions and their texts concerning translation, language and terminology. The study commences with a legal-linguistic analysis of EU texts for references to “staff”, “staff representation” and “employment” in order to identify specific texts and bodies of relevance to the study. This approach leads to two broad categories: staff committees and trade unions. Information is sought from EU institutions about these bodies and their translation and language arrangements, and a list is made of websites available to the general public. These sites are then examined as part of the legal-linguistic profiling approach.

The aim of this paper is to establish the repertoire and distribution of verbal and adverbial exponents of epistemic modality in English- and Polish-language judgments passed by the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) and non-translated judgments passed by the Supreme Court of Poland (SN). The study applies a model for categorizing exponents of epistemicity with regard to their (i) level (high-, medium- and low-level of certainty, necessity or possibility expressed by the markers; primary dimension), (ii) perspective (own vs. reported perspective), (iii) opinion (based either on facts or beliefs) and (iv) time (the embedding of epistemic markers in sentences relating to the past, present or future) (contextual dimensions). It examines the degree of intra-generic convergence of translated EU judgments and non-translated national judgments in terms of the employment of epistemic markers, as well as the degree of authoritativeness of judicial argumentation, and determines whether the frequent use of epistemic markers constitutes a generic feature of judgments. The research material consists of a parallel corpus of English- and Polish-language versions of 200 EU judgments and a corpus of 200 non-translated domestic judgments. The results point to the high salience and differing patterns of use of epistemic markers in both EU and national judgments. The frequent use of high-level epistemic markers boosts the authoritativeness of judicial reasoning.

This paper applies a structured legal-linguistic profiling approach to EU “staff representation bodies” as a way to access domains that lie behind the public face of EU institutions and their texts concerning translation, language and terminology. The study commences with a legal-linguistic analysis of EU texts for references to “staff”, “staff representation” and “employment” in order to identify specific texts and bodies of relevance to the study. This approach leads to two broad categories: staff committees and trade unions. Information is sought from EU institutions about these bodies and their translation and language arrangements, and a list is made of websites available to the general public. These sites are then examined as part of the legal-linguistic profiling approach.

The aim of this paper is to establish the repertoire and distribution of verbal and adverbial exponents of epistemic modality in English- and Polish-language judgments passed by the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) and non-translated judgments passed by the Supreme Court of Poland (SN). The study applies a model for categorizing exponents of epistemicity with regard to their (i) level (high-, medium- and low-level of certainty, necessity or possibility expressed by the markers; primary dimension), (ii) perspective (own vs. reported perspective), (iii) opinion (based either on facts or beliefs) and (iv) time (the embedding of epistemic markers in sentences relating to the past, present or future) (contextual dimensions). It examines the degree of intra-generic convergence of translated EU judgments and non-translated national judgments in terms of the employment of epistemic markers, as well as the degree of authoritativeness of judicial argumentation, and determines whether the frequent use of epistemic markers constitutes a generic feature of judgments. The research material consists of a parallel corpus of English- and Polish-language versions of 200 EU judgments and a corpus of 200 non-translated domestic judgments. The results point to the high salience and differing patterns of use of epistemic markers in both EU and national judgments. The frequent use of high-level epistemic markers boosts the authoritativeness of judicial reasoning.

The paper reports on a survey into the linguistic needs of law professionals in four European countries, with the aim of identifying their views on the importance and their use of foreign language skills as well as their preferences for ELP course content. The data, obtained from a questionnaire survey of 536 legal professionals from Poland, the Czech Republic, Croatia and Germany, show that while the respondents agree on many of the major points, there are also some differences conditioned by the respondents’ age and the specific tasks they perform in the legal profession. The article argues that these variables have to be taken into consideration in the LSP context because they determine some of the specific needs that need to be addressed in Legal English instruction. It is suggested that the findings about the lawyers’ self-perceived importance and preferred styles of learning are highly relevant for LSP practitioners, particularly when designing Legal English programmes and testing materials.

The paper reports on a survey into the linguistic needs of law professionals in four European countries, with the aim of identifying their views on the importance and their use of foreign language skills as well as their preferences for ELP course content. The data, obtained from a questionnaire survey of 536 legal professionals from Poland, the Czech Republic, Croatia and Germany, show that while the respondents agree on many of the major points, there are also some differences conditioned by the respondents’ age and the specific tasks they perform in the legal profession. The article argues that these variables have to be taken into consideration in the LSP context because they determine some of the specific needs that need to be addressed in Legal English instruction. It is suggested that the findings about the lawyers’ self-perceived importance and preferred styles of learning are highly relevant for LSP practitioners, particularly when designing Legal English programmes and testing materials.

The paper reports on a survey into the linguistic needs of law professionals in four European countries, with the aim of identifying their views on the importance and their use of foreign language skills as well as their preferences for ELP course content. The data, obtained from a questionnaire survey of 536 legal professionals from Poland, the Czech Republic, Croatia and Germany, show that while the respondents agree on many of the major points, there are also some differences conditioned by the respondents’ age and the specific tasks they perform in the legal profession. The article argues that these variables have to be taken into consideration in the LSP context because they determine some of the specific needs that need to be addressed in Legal English instruction. It is suggested that the findings about the lawyers’ self-perceived importance and preferred styles of learning are highly relevant for LSP practitioners, particularly when designing Legal English programmes and testing materials.

The paper reports on a survey into the linguistic needs of law professionals in four European countries, with the aim of identifying their views on the importance and their use of foreign language skills as well as their preferences for ELP course content. The data, obtained from a questionnaire survey of 536 legal professionals from Poland, the Czech Republic, Croatia and Germany, show that while the respondents agree on many of the major points, there are also some differences conditioned by the respondents’ age and the specific tasks they perform in the legal profession. The article argues that these variables have to be taken into consideration in the LSP context because they determine some of the specific needs that need to be addressed in Legal English instruction. It is suggested that the findings about the lawyers’ self-perceived importance and preferred styles of learning are highly relevant for LSP practitioners, particularly when designing Legal English programmes and testing materials.

The paper aims to analyse and compare the interpretative function of legislative history in the judicial activity of the European Court of Justice and Polish courts. The authors have analysed judgments of the respective courts, focusing on the role of legislative history in their argumentation. In the Polish and European doctrine, the usefulness of travaux preparatoires has been underestimated. Nevertheless, legislative history may provide arguments important in judicial reasoning both in uni- and multilingual legal systems. However, its importance and functions in Polish and European cases examined herein are different. The research conducted enables a better understanding of the interpretative value of legislative history in legal interpretation and can result in more frequent use of this tool in the judicial activity of national and European courts.

In the extant literature in Japan, the description of criminal cases involving foreigners goes back to around the fifth century; however, detailed depictions of language problems requiring legal interpreters started to appear in the Edo period (1603–1868). The cases of an Italian missionary who entered Japan illegally in 1709 and the robbery of Ainu graves by British consular officers in 1865 presented communication difficulties between the interrogator and accused in criminal procedures. This is common even today. This paper introduces the history of legal interpreting with reference to high profile cases, and reviews changes in communication issues in criminal proceedings involving non-Japanese speaking defendants in modern Japan. It also presents prospects regarding the shift in attitude among legal practitioners toward legal interpreting against the backdrop of recent judicial reforms including the introduction of a lay judge system and visualisation of the investigation process.

Most interpretational problems in law pertain to the meaning of words. However, in this paper I address problems caused in Polish courts by grammar (namely: syntax and inflexion) of legal provisions. One can distinguish five main sources of grammatical issues in judicial interpretation of law: syntax of a sentence (i.e. order of words), conjunctive words (i.e. i, lub), punctuation marks (i.e. comma, semicolon, dash), nominal grammatical categories (i.e. number, gender), verbal grammatical categories (i. e. aspect, tense, mood). Traditional Polish canons of interpretation offer no clues on how to deal with such issues, stating only that statutes should be construed in accordance with the rules of grammar. In fact, cases in which such interpretational issues occur, are decided in a highly incoherent manner. The courts tend to feel a tension between grammatical form of a provision and its purpose, function, or other extra-linguistic values. I think the main reason of such controversy is a very limited vision of grammar shared by the courts, stemmed from primary school rather than contemporary linguistic theories.

Legal translation has played an important part in the contact between different people and countries in the history, and is playing an even more significant role in the increasingly globalized world nowadays. The paper is to explore smart learning models of legal translation competence that the proper legal translators and interpreters are supposed to grasp. The results find that the prerequisites about knowledge of comparative laws, legal languages and forensic linguistics are the external framework; the legal translational language competence, legal translational knowledge structures, legal translational strategic competence and context of situation are the internal model. Based on the external framework and internal model, exploring translation competence mainly concerns on the organizational competence and pragmatic competence.

In the extant literature in Japan, the description of criminal cases involving foreigners goes back to around the fifth century; however, detailed depictions of language problems requiring legal interpreters started to appear in the Edo period (1603–1868). The cases of an Italian missionary who entered Japan illegally in 1709 and the robbery of Ainu graves by British consular officers in 1865 presented communication difficulties between the interrogator and accused in criminal procedures. This is common even today. This paper introduces the history of legal interpreting with reference to high profile cases, and reviews changes in communication issues in criminal proceedings involving non-Japanese speaking defendants in modern Japan. It also presents prospects regarding the shift in attitude among legal practitioners toward legal interpreting against the backdrop of recent judicial reforms including the introduction of a lay judge system and visualisation of the investigation process.

Legal translation has played an important part in the contact between different people and countries in the history, and is playing an even more significant role in the increasingly globalized world nowadays. The paper is to explore smart learning models of legal translation competence that the proper legal translators and interpreters are supposed to grasp. The results find that the prerequisites about knowledge of comparative laws, legal languages and forensic linguistics are the external framework; the legal translational language competence, legal translational knowledge structures, legal translational strategic competence and context of situation are the internal model. Based on the external framework and internal model, exploring translation competence mainly concerns on the organizational competence and pragmatic competence.

Most interpretational problems in law pertain to the meaning of words. However, in this paper I address problems caused in Polish courts by grammar (namely: syntax and inflexion) of legal provisions. One can distinguish five main sources of grammatical issues in judicial interpretation of law: syntax of a sentence (i.e. order of words), conjunctive words (i.e. i, lub), punctuation marks (i.e. comma, semicolon, dash), nominal grammatical categories (i.e. number, gender), verbal grammatical categories (i. e. aspect, tense, mood). Traditional Polish canons of interpretation offer no clues on how to deal with such issues, stating only that statutes should be construed in accordance with the rules of grammar. In fact, cases in which such interpretational issues occur, are decided in a highly incoherent manner. The courts tend to feel a tension between grammatical form of a provision and its purpose, function, or other extra-linguistic values. I think the main reason of such controversy is a very limited vision of grammar shared by the courts, stemmed from primary school rather than contemporary linguistic theories.

The paper aims to analyse and compare the interpretative function of legislative history in the judicial activity of the European Court of Justice and Polish courts. The authors have analysed judgments of the respective courts, focusing on the role of legislative history in their argumentation. In the Polish and European doctrine, the usefulness of travaux preparatoires has been underestimated. Nevertheless, legislative history may provide arguments important in judicial reasoning both in uni- and multilingual legal systems. However, its importance and functions in Polish and European cases examined herein are different. The research conducted enables a better understanding of the interpretative value of legislative history in legal interpretation and can result in more frequent use of this tool in the judicial activity of national and European courts.

In the extant literature in Japan, the description of criminal cases involving foreigners goes back to around the fifth century; however, detailed depictions of language problems requiring legal interpreters started to appear in the Edo period (1603–1868). The cases of an Italian missionary who entered Japan illegally in 1709 and the robbery of Ainu graves by British consular officers in 1865 presented communication difficulties between the interrogator and accused in criminal procedures. This is common even today. This paper introduces the history of legal interpreting with reference to high profile cases, and reviews changes in communication issues in criminal proceedings involving non-Japanese speaking defendants in modern Japan. It also presents prospects regarding the shift in attitude among legal practitioners toward legal interpreting against the backdrop of recent judicial reforms including the introduction of a lay judge system and visualisation of the investigation process.

Legal translation has played an important part in the contact between different people and countries in the history, and is playing an even more significant role in the increasingly globalized world nowadays. The paper is to explore smart learning models of legal translation competence that the proper legal translators and interpreters are supposed to grasp. The results find that the prerequisites about knowledge of comparative laws, legal languages and forensic linguistics are the external framework; the legal translational language competence, legal translational knowledge structures, legal translational strategic competence and context of situation are the internal model. Based on the external framework and internal model, exploring translation competence mainly concerns on the organizational competence and pragmatic competence.

The paper aims to analyse and compare the interpretative function of legislative history in the judicial activity of the European Court of Justice and Polish courts. The authors have analysed judgments of the respective courts, focusing on the role of legislative history in their argumentation. In the Polish and European doctrine, the usefulness of travaux preparatoires has been underestimated. Nevertheless, legislative history may provide arguments important in judicial reasoning both in uni- and multilingual legal systems. However, its importance and functions in Polish and European cases examined herein are different. The research conducted enables a better understanding of the interpretative value of legislative history in legal interpretation and can result in more frequent use of this tool in the judicial activity of national and European courts.

Most interpretational problems in law pertain to the meaning of words. However, in this paper I address problems caused in Polish courts by grammar (namely: syntax and inflexion) of legal provisions. One can distinguish five main sources of grammatical issues in judicial interpretation of law: syntax of a sentence (i.e. order of words), conjunctive words (i.e. i, lub), punctuation marks (i.e. comma, semicolon, dash), nominal grammatical categories (i.e. number, gender), verbal grammatical categories (i. e. aspect, tense, mood). Traditional Polish canons of interpretation offer no clues on how to deal with such issues, stating only that statutes should be construed in accordance with the rules of grammar. In fact, cases in which such interpretational issues occur, are decided in a highly incoherent manner. The courts tend to feel a tension between grammatical form of a provision and its purpose, function, or other extra-linguistic values. I think the main reason of such controversy is a very limited vision of grammar shared by the courts, stemmed from primary school rather than contemporary linguistic theories.

This paper adopts a comparative, corpus-based perspective to examine the language of judicial justification. Based on substantial corpus data, the study explores one of the linguistics resources, i.e. head nouns (e.g. assumption, belief, notion, etc.) followed by a nominal complement in the form of that-clause in two comparable legal settings: the opinions given in the United States Supreme Court and the judgements handed down by Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal. The findings corroborate the results of previous research which shows that nouns found in this pattern are used to perform various discourse functions but evaluation plays a central role in judicial writing and these nouns are used to signal sites of contentions. The study reveals the general similarity between the two sets of data suggesting that American and Polish judicial writing is underpinned by essentially the same epistemological assumptions. Yet, there are some differences in the way the nouns behave phraseologically. Polish nouns tend to show less collocational variation and they are found performing fewer discourse functions.

The paper gives a historical account of the negative effects of poor interpreter-translator service providers to the development of the justice system in countries of Africa generally and Zambia in particular. It recommends various practical solutions to the challenge of access to interpreter-translator service providers generally and legal interpreter-translator services in particular. These include definition of target group; mobilization of funding; building a network of experts to serve as advisors, consultants and resource persons; establishment of a statutory body to guide government on language policy generally, including translation-interpretation services (e.g. Translation and Interpretation Commission); organization of thematic seminars and workshops; media panel discussions; moving a private motion in parliament; curriculum review for consideration by Ministry of Education; and submission of a draft bill for consideration by parliament and/or Ministry of Justice.

Legal English is well-known for its complexity which makes it incomprehensible for lay readers. The answer to the problem of legalese is the plain English movement, aiming at simplification of the language of documents. Despite the fact that the rules for clearer drafting have been extensively discussed, there are still no uniform standards, which is one of the factors that delay the pace of reform. Some types of documents, e.g. wills, are especially resistant to the reform. The aim of this paper is to present a comparative analysis of legalese and plain English on the example of one type of texts. The material comprises a set of 6 British wills: 3 written in traditional style and3 inplain English. The analysis takes into account both macrostructure and microstructure of wills, including design and layout, grammatical structures and lexicon. The analysis reveals that plain language wills are much more readable than their legalese counterparts, as they use better organization, more accessible grammatical structures, and less ambiguous and less archaic terminology. It is argued that it is worthwhile to work on the enhancement of the existing plain language strategies and solutions, so as to develop and popularize plain legal English.

Building on previous holistic multicomponent paradigms of translation macrocompetence, a legal translation competence model is presented which avoids certain conceptual duplications in the light of professional practice, and incorporates distinctive legal thematic elements. Beyond component description, it is argued that the integral development of legal translation competence requires specific interdisciplinary methodologies for practical problem solving. The integrative approach proposed in this paper is process-oriented, and focuses on the legal translation-specific know-how within the key methodological or strategic subcompetence controlling all other subcompetences. Translation and legal knowledge are inextricably linked throughout the translation process, from the initial skopos analysis and legal macro-contextualization until the final revision stage. This approach, intended as a meta-reflection continuum between competence acquisition and reinforcement, and between formal training and professional practice, has proved effective for the systematization of problem-identification, problem-categorization and problem-solving patterns. Finally, some implications for legal translation training are outlined by way of conclusion.

Judicial discourse and the style of written judicial decisions has been subject of numerous analyses. Judicial discourse comprises different elements from formal and structural ones to various modes of argumentation used. Narrative – when approached as a form or a structure – may be helpful in thorough analyses of judicial discourse, in particular the texts of judgements. This paper analyzes one judgement of a Czech court by means of narrative analysis and tackles the issues of narrative differentiation, narrative structure and narrative coherence in relation to judicial decision-making. Furthermore, it addresses the issue of story-telling and its importance within judicial discourse.

The heavy Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in Tunisia which is in progress now will have its impact on the translation industry in the forthcoming years. But while most Tunisian translation teachers and professional translators agree on the urgent need to bridge the gap between the translation classroom and the real world of the translation market (the Academic and Professional Gap (APG)), academic traditions are inhibiting a clear critical focus on this APG. Teachers are still educating students in general skills and academic institutions do not try to frame appropriate strategies to train them to work in specific jobs. Therefore, such traditions are less likely to allow students to be able to succeed when they join this market, and to expect sound career development as they upgrade their skills. Translatorship is after all granted by the market and not by any academic institution. In the face of these challenges, this paper will draw attention to some of the available opportunities which are deemed of paramount importance in any attempt to achieve more professionally-oriented translation training. These opportunities will lead to some concrete and practical suggestions on how to aptly use corpora in the translation classroom, on the one hand, and how to profit from the translation experience inside the United Nations system, on the other.

This paper investigates German legal terminology in the area of higher education in Austria, Germany and Switzerland. Particular emphasis is put on the influence of English in this field arising from internationalization and the creation of the European Higher Education Area. One can assume that due to the Bologna Process – initiated on the European level with the aim of creating more comparable, compatible and coherent higher education systems – there is a wider use of English terminology than before in the field of higher education. German legal and administrative language employed in the higher education sector in the aforementioned countries has been analysed within the framework of this study with the help of comparable specialized corpora of university legislative texts. In addition, a reference corpus of international legal texts dealing with the same topic has been employed. The analysis will endeavour to establish to what extent English terminology is being used.

The article deals with the Argentinian slang Lunfardo which is spoken mainly in Buenos Aires, La Plata and their surroundings. The main objective of the paper is the lexicological analysis of Lunfardo lexical units related to legal matters. Lunfardo came into existence at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries when a great amount of immigrants from different European countries came to Argentina, mainly to its capital Buenos Aires. The languages and dialects spoken by immigrants started to mix with Spanish (its Argentinian variant) and Lunfardo started to develop. The article investigates the history of this linguistic phenomenon and its present situation. It tries to characterize Lunfardo focusing on its linguistic features and social background of its users.

The purpose of this paper is to present most typical methods of expressing deontic modality, namely obligation, prohibition and permission in Polish, American and British contracts. The author has analyzed the corpora of about 45 contracts formulated in British-English, American-English and Polish, namely: (i) deeds of conveyance, (ii) contracts of sale, (iii) contracts of lease, (iv) logistic contracts, (v) deeds of partnership and company-related contracts, (vi) contracts for rendering services and (vii) contracts of employment. After presenting the exponents of deontic modality, the author compiles the results in tables to show potential translative equivalents. The listing of such exponents of modality may serve translation purposes in accordance with textual-normative equivalence (cf. Kierzkowska 2002).

In the first part of the article, by way of an introduction the unique features of the style of English legal language as well as the term polysemy from the cognitive linguistics point of view are presented. The second part demonstrates the analysis of the semantic frame of contracts establishing an employment relationship, its obligatory and optional sections (inter alia: termination of employment, probationary period and confidentiality). Next, the key polysemic words and expressions appearing in the contracts in question together with examples of their legal and colloquial meaning (to terminate, a termination, to second, a remedy, to settle, to govern etc.) are discussed. Subsequently, the paper concentrates on both polysemic words and expressions supporting key expressions as well as other polysemic expressions (amalgamation, a schedule, to incorporate) to present their meanings in various contexts. The research was carried out on ten model employment and internship contracts as well as secondment agreements under the law of England and Wales by virtue of which an employment relationship is formed.

The major objective of this paper is to redefine translational competence of court interpreters necessitated by the introduction of the Directive 2010/64/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 October 2010, which assures the right to translation and interpretation to the persons accused of committing a criminal offence and suspects, who do not understand the language of the investigative proceedings and court hearings so that they can exercise their right of defense, as well as the right to a fair trial. The implementation of the said Directive into the national law of each EU Member State seems to have outdated the definition of a competent court interpreter, who until the said Directive became effective on 13 October 2013, had mainly interpreted criminal trials within one legal system only and therefore was required to be fundamentally familiar with the procedures applied during the criminal trial within the legal system in which the criminal trial took place.

The presentation addresses the field of translating EU texts (directives), specifically the Medical Device Directive. The translation of EU instruments lies within the scope of responsibilities of the translators working for the European Commission and the European Parliament. Yet, sworn translators working in their native countries face the need to translate medical documentation both for natural persons (that is necessary for administrative purposes) and for corporate bodies (that operate on the common European market and require e.g., declarations of conformity, instructions for use or EC design examinations certificates to commercialise their products and thus run their business). Naturally, sworn translators while performing tasks commissioned refer to and consult the accepted translated versions of EU instruments to remain in line with the versions that have been transposed into their national legislations. In this paper, the original (English) and the translated (Polish) versions of the Medical Device Directive (93/42/EEC) shall be compared and analysed to find whether the Polish version fully reflects assumed terminological consistency.

The paper presents the options available when selecting equivalents of the Chinese term 机关 jīguān in legal context. The author undertook the conceptual analysis of the potential German and Polish equivalents of 机关 applied in the General Principles of the Civil Law of the People’s Republic of China of April 12, 1986 (中华人民共和国民法通则 Zhōnghuá Rénmín Gònghéguó mínfă tōngzé) and Civil Procedure Law of the People’s Republic of China of April 9, 1991 (中华人民共和国诉讼法 Zhōnghuá Rénmín Gònghéguó mínshì sùsòng fă). The corpus under study included the translation of the mentioned statutes into English proposed by Centre of Laws and Regulations in Law Press China (法规中心，法律出版社 Făguī zhōngxīn, Fălǜ chūbănshè). English and German are often intermediary languages in the process of finding equivalents in Polish-Chinese translation. The term 机关 used in a legal and/or administrative context is translated into English, German and Polish differently depending on the context.

Being a complex type of discourse, legal discourse is realized through legal texts written in legal language, which are regarded as special-purpose texts different from other kinds of texts in respect of their text-internal and text-external properties. A great variety of legal texts reflects the diversity of law itself. As different legal texts tend to have different functional, structural and linguistic features, they are classified into genres on the basis of different criteria. The analysis of genres of legal texts contributes to the overall understanding and construction of legal discourse in general and legal texts in particular. This paper aims at the overview and discussion of genres of legal texts focusing on specific features of legal texts and criteria of the classification of legal texts into genres.

European courts and legal scholars are accustomed to construing codes that have been in place for long periods of time. In the U.S., most laws are recent enough that the meanings of their words have not changed very much over time. This, however, is not true of the Constitution, which was adopted in the late 18th century. There are debates in the U.S. about how faithful current interpreters of the Constitution should be to the original meaning of the Constitution’s language, and over what it means to be faithful to the original meaning of the Constitution’s language. Should we care about what the original drafters had in mind, or about how the public that voted on the Constitution understood the language? Scholars and judges have turned to old dictionaries for help. Now, however, corpus linguistics has entered the scene, including a new corpus of general 18th century English. In this paper, I will suggest that scholars and judges interested in the meanings of the words as then understood should put themselves in the position of lexicographers writing a bilingual dictionary that translates the terms from a foreign language into contemporary English. Such a stance will bring out the many difficult problems in using a corpus as a means of making legal decisions today.

The aim of this paper is to compare the Russian and Ukrainian clauses conveying deontic modality of obligation in international law. The investigation was carried out on parallel texts of Agreement, Treaty and Memorandum of Understanding drawn up by the Ukraine and the Russian Federation in the post-Soviet era. This systematic comparison deals with both modal auxiliaries and several periphrastic constructions. The study findings show that the two languages have very different constructions for conveying this deontic value, with Ukrainian legal language using a more varied range of lexico-semantic and morphosyntactic units. Divergence occurs in the use of the modal constructions with the verbs musyty and maty and the synthetic future form, which is not available in Russian.

The aim of this article is to highlight an issue of expressing deontic modality in Finnish and Polish in a legal context in terms of deontic strength. The particular interest is put on the Finnish necessive expression on –t(t)ava and its Polish equivalents. The choice of this expression is motivated by the fact that it is the most frequent deontic expression that occurred in the analysed material. It is argued that although the meaning of the Finnish and English modal expressions are almost parallel, the corresponding Polish expressions show some discrepancy. This paper aims at giving insight into the differences of the phenomenon on the basis of the Treaty on Functioning of the European Union.

Translating legal texts into English requires that a translator should make a qualified decision with respect to a variety of legal English, or its modification, to be used as the target language. The analysis should be aimed at choosing the best possible “variety” of legal English at all “linguistic” levels – grammatical (morphology and syntax), semantic and conceptual (relevant terminological choice), textual (relevant text types/genres) and pragmatic (considering potential addressees). The decision relating to “which legal English” should be used may often be motivated by the type of target legal system (e.g. common law, continental law, sharia, etc.) and by an envisaged ultimate recipient of the translated text (whether the recipient has any legal background, previous experience in legal transactions conducted in English, etc.). The paper deals with the relevant aspects of such decision-making and provides examples of both useful options and confusing alternatives.

This paper explores the identity construction of ethnic minority (EM) interpreters in Hong Kong and the way cultural differences are incorporated into interpreting in legal settings. The linkage between the two key themes under this study is intertwined by a proposition that an EM interpreter is able to identify cultural differences at work because of his/her close affiliation with the culture, language and ethnicity. In examining the formation of EM interpreters’ professional identities, the intricate interplay of the interpreters’ perceptions, knowledge, native values and beliefs on the one hand and institutional mechanisms/mainstream practice on the other, will be studied. Based on the theoretical framework of Jenkins’ internal-external dialectic of identification developed in Social Identity (2004) and Rethinking Ethnicity (2008), I will integrate Neuliep’s (2009) contextual approach of intercultural communication to examine the integration of cultural differences in interpreters’ interpretation. The research methods primarily used in this project are Milroy’s (1987, 2003) approach of social networking and critical ethnography (Madison 2005). Social networking has been used as an overarching theme in navigating contacts for collecting data and analysing the network dynamics that influence interpreting practice. Likewise, critical ethnography has been used as a tool to investigate how different power structures impact legal interpreting practice. Need for proper assessment, accreditation, professional development opportunities and the code of ethics have emerged as overlapping topics in the process of data collection. As interpreting practice in EM languages in Hong Kong is still relatively unexplored, the project aims at providing viable recommendations to the development of the interpreting profession in legal settings, in particular in Hong Kong.

This paper examines the rules and working practices of main institutions of European Union in relation to EU policy multilingualism. The institutions analysed in this research include the Commission, the Council of the European Union, the Court of Justice of the European Union, and the European Parliament. After presenting the legal basis of EU multilingualism, the study identifies the achievements and difficulties met by EU institutions in the process of its realisation. Topic highlighted in this study include: • Problems resulting from the status and number of official EU languages. • The distinction made between EU institutions obliged to observe citizens’ language rights and other bodies that can seemingly make their own rules. • Inconsistencies between the practice of internal and external communication of the EU institutions, presenting examples from individual institutions, as well as from judicial practice of the Court of Justice of the European Union. Finally, the article presents an evaluation of the solutions to the observed problems presented in the literature, along with the author’s own conclusions.

This paper discusses the issue of plain legal language in Japan. First, several legal language battles between legal and lay people are shown, followed by a paraphrase work on civil legal terms based on a research titled ‘A Study on Paraphrase of Civil Legal Terms based on Lay Perception’, which was funded by Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research of Japan Society for the Promotion of Science from April of 2012 to March of 2013. The research was conducted, using corpus analysis of civil legal terms appeared in ordinary writings and questionnaire of legal experts. The finding of the research is that ‘misunderstood’ legal words which appear more than 50% in non-legal writings is an obstacle to lay understanding. One ‘misunderstood’ legal term ‘intent’ (故意) is selected for paraphrase analysis from the point of views of antonym, synonym, derivative of legal term.

The aim of the paper is to present the operation of the Commission for Professional Accountability of Sworn Translators at the Minister of Justice looking back on its almost ten-year history. In the theoretical part, we will discuss the legal framework within which it operates, the procedure it follows and the types of penalties it may impose. In the practical part, we will carry out a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the cases which have been heard so far at hearings conducted before the Commission. The analysis will allow us to distinguish different types of infringements committed by sworn translators. We will focus our attention on translation errors, especially those which had or might have had adverse legal consequences.