Communication and culture mediation techniques in jurilinguistics

Managing global transitions, 2006

In the contemporary business world, partners belonging to different nations, and hence different cultures, conduct business operations in either the language of one of the parties involved or in a third, neutral language, serving as lingua franca. Thus, language skills, as an essential component of the communicative competence, imply a certain extent of implicit or explicit translating and interpreting. The functionalist approaches in translation science, and most of all the Skopos theory by J. H. Vermeer, view translation as an intercultural transfer, which inevitably entails taking into account intercultural differences. As intercultural business communication is directly affected by the legal systems of the cultures involved, the communicating parties need to be acquainted with both the source and target legal systems. This is especially the case with English, as the Anglo-American legal system, based essentially on common law, differs substantially from continental law, to which...

Book review, 2013

Wydanie publikacji dofinansował Instytut Językoznawstwa Czasopismo znajduje się na liście ministerialnej czasopism punktowanych z 2012 roku z liczbą 8 punktów.

2008

Santalka, 2012

This paper addresses the considerable role of legal translation in intercultural communication. Effective intercultural communication requires sufficient language skills and also extensive knowledge of the cultures involved, which encompass official social behaviour norms, enshrined in the corresponding legal systems. The basic legal terms often pose substantial difficulties even for experienced translators and, hence, to communication, because these terms nominate concepts that are inherently linked with culture, moral values and legal tradition of a given country. In intercultural communication the most widely used legal English is permeated by Anglo-Saxon legal system and concepts which have little or no equivalents in Romano-Germanic or other continental law countries. The authors present a comparative analysis of the translation strategies employed by the compilers of two main English-Lithuanian law dictionaries (V. Bitinaitė "Mokomasis anglų-lietuvių kalbų teisės terminų žodynas" and O. Armalytė, L. Pažūsis. "Anglų-lietuvių kalbų teisės žodynas") in translation of the English-Welsh law terms defining abstract common law terms, some specific English-Welsh legal professions and the English-Welsh court names. The findings of the analysis reveal the difficulties which the dictionary compilers have to cope with when translating culture-bound terms and the strategies chosen by them for problematic translations. The research also highlights the role of the legal language translator as the key figure in facilitating different cultural background comprehension of the legal terms and, what is even more important, specific aspects of legal systems; the latter being necessary for efficacious intercultural cooperation.

The paper primarily attempts to grapple with some puzzling questions associating the language of the law. With the aid of legal theories, I have attempted to link it with the inconsistency in the laws upheld by the judiciary, and the association and futility in the light of unbending social practices. Part 1 would elaborate the critique of the language of law, from a Marxist standpoint, in opposition to the Liberal tradition. This will be followed by the advocates of legal language in Part 2, defending the rationality and level of consistency as imperative for upholding the Rule of Law. Part 3 would negate the argument put forward by the proponents, by highlighting the failure in the methodology and practice of law. There are certain tensions and shortcomings in the pre- established notion of constitutionalism dealt in Part 4, and its failure in reconciling all forms of ethnic, social, and linguistic diversities, across the world. And finally, Part 5 would build up the argument by taking case studies from the Indian Constitution and the failure of Article 17 to contain the perpetuation of caste system, and the negative implications of the narrow intellect in grasping the impossibility of eliminating.

2014

Henceforth, my dear philosophers, let us be on guard against the dangerous old conceptual fiction that posited a "pure, will-less, painless, timeless knowing subject" [which] demand[s] that we should think of an eye that is completely unthinkable, an eye turned in no particular direction, in which the active and interpreting forces, through which alone seeing becomes seeing something, are supposed to be lacking.. .. There is only a perspective seeing, only a perspective "knowing"; and the more affects we allow to speak about one thing, the more eyes, different eyes, we can use to observe one thing, the more complete will our "concept" of this thing, our "objectivity," be.

Chicago Kent Law Review, 2003

Alternative Law Journal, 2016

Language and law are codes of communication across cultures as well as criteria to identify a specific society and differentiate it from others. In these two respects, language and law are inextricably tied by a synergistic symbiosis. Yet, language and law are also equally subject to the cruel aporia stemming from their unrealistic aspiration to universalism. Any academic language is a bridge built to overcome differences between cultures and borders. It is equally true that justice is part of humanity, a common heritage of mankind— irreducible to cultural relativism—and that each society is so specific that its legal system is not comparable or not even rigorously accessible to any other. The contradiction is deceptive in the same manner as is the opposition between natural law and positivism: for positivism must be anchored in natural law in order to respect human dignity and justice and natural law cannot exist a priori and may only be expressed in a given society by its peculiar legal culture and through its positive legal order.

International Journal for the Semiotics of Law - Revue internationale de Sémiotique juridique, 2020

The aim of this short essay is to highlight and concisely explore-but not address in depth-some cultural aspects related to legal languages, legal interpretation and legal translation. We would like to consider briefly the following questions: How can elements of legal language, as exemplified by proper names and euphemisms, be connected with cultural (extra-linguistic) factors influencing language units' formation? How can judicial discourse reflect the culture of a given justice system? How can the legal interpretation affect the degree of legal culture? Are theories of legal interpretation universal or applicable to specific legal cultures? What is the impact of culture on the context of legal translation? How can the cultural background affect the decision to use terms in translation? How does cyberculture impact legal translation?