Books by Caroline I B Laske
Legal History Library Volume 42 (Brill), 2020
In this monograph, Caroline Laske traces the advent of consideration in English contract law, by ... more In this monograph, Caroline Laske traces the advent of consideration in English contract law, by analysing the doctrinal development, in parallel with the corresponding terminological evolution and semantic shifts between the fourteenth and nineteenth centuries. It is an innovative, interdisciplinary study, showcasing the value of taking a diachronic corpus linguistics-based approach to the study of legal change and legal development, and the semantic shifts in the corresponding terminology. The seminal application in the legal field of these analytical methodologies borrowed from pragmatic linguistics goes beyond the content approach that legal research usually practices and it has allowed for claims of semantic change to be objectified. This ground-breaking work is pitched at scholars of legal history, law & language, and linguistics; and is of importance to scholars of private law working on promises and contract.
Joseph C. Miller Memorial Lecture Series, 2020
This paper examines the legal capacity which secular women enjoyed or lacked in late medieval Nor... more This paper examines the legal capacity which secular women enjoyed or lacked in late medieval Normandy. The issue is particularly relevant to decoding asymmetrical dependencies, since a lack of legal capacity was the quintessential expression of women's inferior position and dependency in society and in the eyes of the law. The research discussed in this paper reveals the extent of that legal dependency in real, rhetorical and linguistic terms. It involves examining the textual and semantic representation of women in Norman customary law texts, by using diachronic linguistics and terminological methodologies. The study confirms the assumption that women in thirteenth century Normandy had relatively low legal capacity and found themselves in asymmetrical dependencies on men, especially on their husbands. The narrative told in the Coutumier of men is not only more substantial but also considerably more varied and thus contextually richer. The approach has allowed us to go beyond content analysis and get a better understanding of the actual social experience of women's legal capacity by compounding information and data from analysis of content, meanings, terminology and discourse and, hence, providing a contextualized understanding of the dependencies in which women existed in their daily lives.
Papers by Caroline I B Laske
Naming, Defining, Phrasing Strong Asymmetrical Dependencies: A Textual Approach, edited by Jeannine Bischoff, Stephan Conermann and Marion Gymnich, Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, 2023, pp. 213-238., 2023
This paper discusses the concept of women’s legal capacity during the later Middle Ages, thereby ... more This paper discusses the concept of women’s legal capacity during the later Middle Ages, thereby highlighting it as an inherent asymmetrical dependency construct, with particular reference to the customary law in the Sachsenspiegel Landrecht. The aim is to enhance our understanding of asymmetrical dependencies linked to gender during a historical period when society, hierarchies and power were conceived and structured very differently from the modern and post-modern periods. In that respect, the paper illustrates why theories of gender should go beyond the usual conceptualisations rooted in modern society and also include medieval studies.
Representation and Rights of the Environment, (ed.) Lamalle & Stoett, 2023
The ‘environment’ is a subject that is inhabited by an impressive diversity of points of views, i... more The ‘environment’ is a subject that is inhabited by an impressive diversity of points of views, ideas, concepts, philosophies, rules, laws and regulations, to name just a few. As a body of law, developed in a very short period of time in view of the urgency and political content and context, environmental law did not benefit from a more gradual ‘organic’ evolution. This relative rapid rise and success of environmental law comes at a cost: the content and legitimacy of the underlying concepts and principles of environmental protection and governance have been given insufficient attention and time to evolve. This book chapter describes a brief study that adopts a pragmatic approach to the examination of concepts by studying language and terminology as the linguistic expression of and reliable indicators for underlying conceptual thinking. It sketches out an approach and methodology that can contribute to the consolidation of a conceptual foundation for environmental policy, law and governance. The analysis of language and discourse provides in-depth and empirical knowledge beyond content analysis from the specific angle of observing the shifts in the semantic fields of the language and terminology. It is a brief examination of a research question that could potentially cover vast amounts of texts and data.
Comparative Legal History, Vol. 10, No. 1, 3-32, 2022
Corpus linguistics methodologies offer innovative ways of reading legal historical sources. Study... more Corpus linguistics methodologies offer innovative ways of reading legal historical sources. Studying the language of source texts using computational techniques that retrieve linguistic data makes detailed searches of words, phrases, and lexical/grammatical patterns and structures possible and provides multiple contextual data that is both quantitative and qualitative, empirical rather than intuitive. It helps us understand not just what is being said, but also how it is being said, how language is used to encode meanings, and what that can tell us about underlying contents and the socio-political, cultural, geopolitical, economic, and other contexts and discourses in which these texts were produced. This paper argues that the use of corpus linguistics is relevant across comparative legal history and can be applied in comparative legal historical research independent of the area of the law or the historical period. Detailed studies incorporating corpus linguistics will be discussed to show the potential of this methodological shift.
Objectivity in Jurisprudence, Legal Interpretation and Practical Reasoning, (eds.) G. Villa-Rosas, J. Fabra-Zamora, 2022
The essence of Western legal traditions, based on the concept of the rule of law, lies in the neu... more The essence of Western legal traditions, based on the concept of the rule of law, lies in the neutrality and generality of the scope of its system and its legislation. The law is said to be justified if it is verifiably general, neutral and impartial; it must be perceived as rational and meaningful. To that extent it is governed by the concept of objectivity, the character of which lies in the ability to consider or represent facts, information, etc., without being influenced by subjective elements such as particular perspectives, value commitments, community bias or personal interests, feelings or opinions, to name just a few relevant factors. The argument evolves around semantic objectivity as the result of convention: the use of language and specific terms is deemed objective when it corresponds to the convention determined by the uses given by most speakers of a given group. The objectivity of the use of language and specific terms in a given situation can in turn be evaluated in relation to its conventional use. However, semantic objectivity in this sense does not mean that the conventional use of language and meaning is intrinsically free from bias. It will be argued that language cannot be entirely neutral but is always the result of encoding meanings in particular contexts. Big data linguistic analysis provides tools to reveal contextualised encoding of meanings, both in the context of intersubjective agreement of the use of language, as well as in that of highlighting biases.
This paper addresses the question of how, historically, the language of the English common law ha... more This paper addresses the question of how, historically, the language of the English common law has become separated from the understanding by the ordinary man and woman. The use of an archaic language – law French – for over half a millennium has meant that legal matters had to be left in the hands of a small specifically trained elite. Law French is a language, originally based on Old Norman, Old French and Anglo-Norman. Its evolution is a complex one: its roots in Latin, it was in constant contact with the various dialects of both continental and insular French as well as the upcoming Middle English, all of which had a major impact on the medieval linguistic and cultural landscape of England. The present paper tells the story of that language, which although long gone, is still present in today's common law English. Now, as then, it contributes little to enhancing the understanding by the ordinary man and woman.
Corela. Cognition, représentation, langage , 2018
La langue de spécialité comme marqueur d’un groupe professionnel fait l’objet de l’étude présenté... more La langue de spécialité comme marqueur d’un groupe professionnel fait l’objet de l’étude présentée dans cet article.
Law French as the legal language in use between 1250 and 1731 in the English common law was of a specialised idiom comprehensible only to those within the closed confines of the legal profession. The ordinary men not learned in the law were excluded, not only due to the use of a specialised language but also because that tongue became increasingly foreign to them.
This paper is an enquiry into the history of translating legal texts. It discusses the paradigm s... more This paper is an enquiry into the history of translating legal texts. It discusses the paradigm shift in translation studies and in the field of legal translation in particular, as well as the particular demands of modern legal translation. It is surprising that in view of the sheer bulk of legal translation that is produced today and the vital role these play in our daily lives, relatively little interdisciplinary space is granted to this particular field in either translation studied or legal studies.
This paper develops the idea of using linguistic disciplines as cognitive models for comparative ... more This paper develops the idea of using linguistic disciplines as cognitive models for comparative law, and of adopting linguistics and translation studies methodologies to provide a more ‘objective’ basis for research in comparative law, which will in turn also influence legal theory. Recently, comparative law has been approached from interdisciplinary angles, including social sciences, but never from a linguistic point of view. Translation studies and comparative law are disciplines that both involve comparative work: translation can be seen as a language contact point, while comparative law establishes contact points between different systems of law. Legal comparatists have struggled with establishing tertium comparationis among the systems to be compared. The argument developed in the paper is that the methodologies and tools used by linguistic and translation studies enable contents on the different language levels to be exposed on an objective (linguistic and discourse analysis) and even empirical basis (using corpus linguistics methodologies).
Thomas Hobbes. De ik-gerichtheid van de politieke filosofie, 2019
Hobbes is generally best known for his contribution to social and political philosophy, whilst hi... more Hobbes is generally best known for his contribution to social and political philosophy, whilst his legal thought tended to get neglected. This essay examines Hobbes’s specific ideas on the common law. His legal thoughts did not just relate to a collection of particular norms, he was more concerned with constructing a jurisprudence, of which his theory of the common law was an integral part. While law played an important role in Hobbes’s political thought, it was not his starting point but rather something towards which he built throughout his life.
Lectures (unpublished) by Caroline I B Laske
Henri Pirenne Institute Medieval Seminar Series, 2019
Conference Presentations by Caroline I B Laske
This paper explores some aspects of the relationship between medieval Flanders and Anglo- Norman ... more This paper explores some aspects of the relationship between medieval Flanders and Anglo- Norman England, which intensified, in particular, when William of Normandy’s army also counted Flemish knights at the conquest and occupation of England, as well as in the fight to contain the Anglo- Saxon rebellions.
Talks by Caroline I B Laske
Between Text, Meaning and Legal Language, (ed.) Jan Engberg, 2024
This paper argues for a sociolinguistic approach to legal linguistics, which contributes insights... more This paper argues for a sociolinguistic approach to legal linguistics, which contributes insights into the law that have hitherto been under-explored, in particular, in legal scholarship. Law as a tool of social governance is conditioned by the society’s perceptions of its identity, including the hegemony of its structures, its moral, social, geo-political and cultural constructs and its economic needs. This aspect of social governance is linguistically fixed through legal language, which is performative, on the one hand, but also conveys social meaning, sociolinguistic content and aspects of the society’s identity, on the other. That aspect of legal language has had less attention in legal research.
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Books by Caroline I B Laske
Papers by Caroline I B Laske
Law French as the legal language in use between 1250 and 1731 in the English common law was of a specialised idiom comprehensible only to those within the closed confines of the legal profession. The ordinary men not learned in the law were excluded, not only due to the use of a specialised language but also because that tongue became increasingly foreign to them.
Lectures (unpublished) by Caroline I B Laske
Conference Presentations by Caroline I B Laske
Talks by Caroline I B Laske
Law French as the legal language in use between 1250 and 1731 in the English common law was of a specialised idiom comprehensible only to those within the closed confines of the legal profession. The ordinary men not learned in the law were excluded, not only due to the use of a specialised language but also because that tongue became increasingly foreign to them.