Comparative law

1710 Comparative law

V - LEGAL LANGUAGE AND LANGUAGES

OUTLINE

(Week 5 16/10 and 17/10/2019

Language is fundamental for the law. It is the loom of language. The question is how the language influence in the concepts. Legal language construct the law? Is the structure of the law a function or consequence of the structure of the language? Law makes the legal languages?

Exemple: in French law “la-le” in English  law there isn’t this difference, is more general

Language Is useful for us to approach different laws, systems

1. Terminology and Legal Language

Law as a question of legal meaning

Translation is a huge issue. Is legal Translation transability ?

Legal pluralism exist in many nations. Several languages interact in those cultures

How translator worksin different legal systems and legal languages, the difficulty is “the similar”

Legal translation is seriously enough? There’s translators and jurist translators. Legal translation is a tricky question ‘cause there are many translation that are not especially, they’re informal and this is the danger

1. Instrumentalising legal language to create a legal system

Ex. English and English common law. A language code legal English, English stablish common law, English common law is separated for example: latin is far from this system. Language destone the full process, language influences the process. Latin is related to roman concepts. Trespass – trépassé about legal obligations, so French language s related to legal English system

Language influences processes

Transformation or deformation?

In business often people uses many terminology as “leasing” , deforming the English language. A legal language is not always the best indstrumental to approach other languages, it’s exploited.

1. One language may cover many legal languages

The French language contain the other legal languages. “Fiducie” in Quebec is a translation of trust from English common law. It’s seems Bilingual civil code.

In French civil code art.200 “Fiducie” is completely different.

In different code use the legal terms in different ways. Nobody uses the same word in the same way, legal words have different uses. Distress is to pressure something but in legal languages is to seize of goods

1. Legal Translation: translatability and comparability

How we could translate this different rules in different languages or are untranslatable? Certain rules are untranslatable

1. Lack of correspondence between terms: dissonance again?

UNIDROIT is about international commerce. It’s common to uses a bilingual terms. Ex. The signify should be the same even the translations (content), for example “obligation de dolé”.Differences in legal tongues should mantein the concept even the translation.

Propieté and owner ship they have different meanings. Etat de droit and the rule of law have the same meaning. Contrat (1) and contracts are different (1) Has “titre onneraux and titre gratuity in French. Contrat contain an agreement fiducie, (2) only onneraux, Contain all the mortgage. So, they don’t cover the same things.

1. A variety of relationships between the word and the concept

The legal law and translation needs a correlation between the terms

It’s not identical in different language uses. Ex. A and b

1. Gaps between ordinary and legal language

It’s necessary to make a correspondance

1. Ellipsis and the use of synecdoches

Ellipsis: Synecdoche is when… Ex. Visual consent/consentement

Art.384 : Responsabilité Delictuelle : Le persone qui cause un dommage. But in the definition we have fault. In CC leave an important part the complement is not only furtive (morely..) and is contrary to the law. You can be furtive in moral and not in legal

2.3. The thesis of untranslatability: lost, or the loss, in translation ?

...