Präzision versus Vagheit
-
Reiner Arntz
Zusammenfassung
The tension between precision and indeterminacy is an intrinsic feature of legal language. Specialist communication, and legal language has to be regarded as such, aims at utmost precision to avoid any form of ambiguity. On the other hand, laws and statutes define general rules for citizens and must be comprehensible to all. Moreover, they have to be adapted to changing social realities. All this leads to varying degrees of indeterminacy in the different legal systems. The paper describes indeterminacy in legal language and proposes ways to handle this problem in order to improve the management of multilingual terminology as well as to optimise the translation of legal texts. An adapted terminographical methodology based on the principles of comparative law helps to overcome the lack of equivalence between concepts from different legal systems. Another important issue is the harmonisation of the law which implies a harmonisation of legal concepts and eventually a harmonisation of terms.
Zusammenfassung
The tension between precision and indeterminacy is an intrinsic feature of legal language. Specialist communication, and legal language has to be regarded as such, aims at utmost precision to avoid any form of ambiguity. On the other hand, laws and statutes define general rules for citizens and must be comprehensible to all. Moreover, they have to be adapted to changing social realities. All this leads to varying degrees of indeterminacy in the different legal systems. The paper describes indeterminacy in legal language and proposes ways to handle this problem in order to improve the management of multilingual terminology as well as to optimise the translation of legal texts. An adapted terminographical methodology based on the principles of comparative law helps to overcome the lack of equivalence between concepts from different legal systems. Another important issue is the harmonisation of the law which implies a harmonisation of legal concepts and eventually a harmonisation of terms.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Foreword xi
- Introduction – LSP studies xiii
-
Indeterminacy
- Indeterminacy, context, economy and well-formedness in specialist communication 3
- Lexical chains in technical translation 15
- Eliminating indeterminacy 37
- Indeterminacy of terms and icons in software localization 49
-
Indeterminacy
- Epistemological aspects of indeterminacy in postmodernist science 61
- No fixed boundaries 73
- Commensurability of scientific theories and indeterminacy of terminological concepts 93
- Concept formation and indeterminacy in the LSP of Economics 107
- Vague legal concepts 119
- Präzision versus Vagheit 135
-
Indeterminacy
- Coping with indeterminacy 157
- Ontologies and indeterminacy 181
- Terminological modelling of processes 199
-
Heribert Picht
- Heribert Picht 217
- Contributors 231
- Index 235
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Foreword xi
- Introduction – LSP studies xiii
-
Indeterminacy
- Indeterminacy, context, economy and well-formedness in specialist communication 3
- Lexical chains in technical translation 15
- Eliminating indeterminacy 37
- Indeterminacy of terms and icons in software localization 49
-
Indeterminacy
- Epistemological aspects of indeterminacy in postmodernist science 61
- No fixed boundaries 73
- Commensurability of scientific theories and indeterminacy of terminological concepts 93
- Concept formation and indeterminacy in the LSP of Economics 107
- Vague legal concepts 119
- Präzision versus Vagheit 135
-
Indeterminacy
- Coping with indeterminacy 157
- Ontologies and indeterminacy 181
- Terminological modelling of processes 199
-
Heribert Picht
- Heribert Picht 217
- Contributors 231
- Index 235
