Zooming Into the Language of Eu Documents

Vertimo Studijos 5, 2013

EU texts are produced by way of multilingual negotiation in a supranational multicultural discourse community, where there is no linguistically neutral ground and where internationalisation of concepts and ideas is a sine qua non. As a result, they are idiosyncratic texts, reflecting specific textual features. Their translation in the current 23 official EU languages is equally idiosyncratic and challenging, to say the least, especially since it is shaped under the EU’s overwhelming cultural and linguistic diversity, the constraints of its policy of multilingualism, and the subsequent policy of linguistic equality which states that all languages are equal, or “equally authentic” (Wagner, Bech and Martinez 2002, 7), and that translations are not really translations but language versions. In other words, in the framework of EU translation, the terms source text (ST) and target text (TT) cease to exist, while the prima facie illusory notion of “equivalence” seems to resurface –though altered in nature– and dominate the translation practice. It thus goes without saying that in the case of EU texts and their translation a tailor-made theoretical framework is required where many classic concepts of Translation Studies (TS), such as ST, TT and equivalence need to be re-evaluated and redefined, and at the same time functionalist approaches and the postmodernist concepts of intertextuality, hybridity and in-betweenness need to come to the fore. The proposed translation theory for EU texts flaunts the feature inherent in their production, it is – just like them – hybrid.

This article gives an overview of major translation procedures employed in Acquis communautaire documents, i.e. institutional-legal EU documents sourced from the thematic repertoire of education and training, published in the Official Journal of the European Union, against a background of the English-Slovak language pair. On the basis of comprehensive textual analysis, the author aims to elaborate her own synthetising translation procedures model as applied in eurotext translations under scrutiny, consisting of transposition, modulation, permutation, expansion, reduction, calque and borrowing, drawing on Vinay & Darbelnet's (1958), Newmark's (1981 and earlier models. The paper mingles identification and interpretation facets of research drawing attention to broader implications of the manipulating power of the EU language policy.

Contrastive studies of statutory legislation are very scarce worldwide. Research in legal language has mainly concentrated on adjectival law leading to linguistic insights regarding powerful versus powerless speech, fragmented versus narrative testimony, the effect on jurors of simultaneous and overlapping speech, the use of leading, suggestive or improper questions in the courtroom, etc. Language of the substantive law has so far received considerably less attention from linguists, although there is a general tendency in academic endeavours towards interdisciplinary studies. Linguistic analyses of substantive law have elucidated issues such as how to make existing or future statutes clearer, without loss of content (i.e. document design) or how law students can be taught to process legislation. The present article analyses the specific functional, linguistic and communicative characteristics of the legal genre from an applied linguist's perspective in the context of European legal texts, as representing a unique set of features and conditions. It looks at the linguistic situation in Europe and the language policy in the EU with special emphasis on the translation regime of EU institutions. The participants in the communication and the special role of the translator in the law making process in the EU are discussed. Resumen Los estudios contrastivos sobre legislación parlamentaria a nivel transnacional son muy escasos. Hasta ahora, el interés investigador se ha centrado en cuestiones de derecho adjetivo, como el estudio del discurso de poder, las deposiciones testimoniales fragmentadas y las narrativas, la influencia sobre el

Target-international Journal of Translation Studies, 2014

The European Commission’s Directorate-General for Translation (DGT) wants to do Translation Studies, and we must welcome the intention. Part of its plan involves the production of a series of reports on key issues in the field. This makes sense because Europe massively depends on translation for its governance, and thus invests significant administrative resources in translation services. If translation is important anywhere, it should be in Europe. If it should be studied anywhere, it is in Europe.

2016

The 20th International Conference the Knowledge-Based Organization , 2014

The article scrutinizes the variety of languages in the European Union. The linguistic unification of Europe is no longer a necessary requisite to overcome language barriers. The identity of Europe can only be represented adequately by respecting its diversity. Therefore, it is only the promotion of all national languages that will allow us to preserve the richness of the culture of which these languages are the privileged means of expression. The multilingual policy adopted by Europe is thus a critical test for the European Union. Translation is an inevitable part of language learning and teaching as well as a challenge for the European Court of Justice to interpret certain legal texts. Increasing globalization demands the knowledge of English for special purposes, i.e. Legal English in order to translate texts clearly, accurately, unambiguously, through cohesion links and means.

This paper aims at highlighting some of the challenges involved in translating legal texts as part of the multilingual lawmaking process of the European Union. The author posits that it is the function of the target texts that makes the difference between legal translation as part of multilingual lawmaking and other types of legal translation. In multilingual lawmaking, the resulting language versions are the law, not just information about law applicable elsewhere. Since the different authentic language versions are the law, they must comply with the basic quality requirements for legislation, such as accessibility, predictability, and non-discrimination. This, in turn, has consequences for relating to the source text, both as regards terminology and drafting conventions. The joy and sorrow of the EU translator is found in working to strike the balance between fidelity to the source text, on the one hand, and the observance of these basic quality requirements for legislation, on the other. Drafting guidelines and the EN 15038 standard provide useful guidance in this delicate endeavour.

MESSENGER of Kyiv National Linguistic University. Series Philology

The article presents the nature and legitimacy of translation studies; it examines the function of a translator, its role during the translation process and the generated linguistic product from the point of view of cognitive pragmatics. In the present study we are looking for the answer to what factors influence the translator in his/her activity, what aspects he/she keeps in mind, how relevance theory prevails in translation, what role the current context, target audience and readers’ prior knowledge have in interpreting the translated text. In order to answer the questions, in the first part we summarize the opinions published in the literature, then we examine our hypothesis with the method of structural discourse analysis in relation to three languages (English, German, Hungarian) in EU texts, according to which, despite the European Union’s language policy aspirations, similarities and differences can be noticed depending on what the translator considered relevant to highlight...

Translation Policies in Legal and Institutional Settings, 2021

Translation plays a crucial role in the European Union (EU). To ensure high quality of translations, the translators at EU institutions are bound by specific institutional practices and guidelines. The guidelines, especially languagespecific ones, evolve over time and their contents adjust to the current needs of the language. The aim of this chapter is to empirically investigate to what extent the new rules integrated into the successive versions of the Polish style guide Vademecum Tłumacza are incorporated into the translators' practice. To this end, the distribution of selected expressions in Polish language versions is examined on a yearly basis using the methods of corpus linguistics. The patterns are identified on the basis of applicable versions of the Polish style guide. The analysis is conducted on the corpora of legislation and reports drafted by the European Commission. It is argued that the changes introduced to the Vademecum are not always taken into consideration. The study shows that there is generally little variation in the distribution of the items indicated in the guidelines as "undesired". This lack of response to the new rules is attributed to the combination of time pressure, requirement of consistency, the use of translation memories, translators' habits and a high volume of instructions.