Naslov
Heikki E.S. Mattila. Comparative Legal Linguistics. Hampshire/Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2006. 347 pp. ISBN-10: 0-7546-4874 ; ISBN-13: 987-0-7546-4874-1

Autori
Šarčević, Susan

Izvornik
Target-International Journal of Translation Studies (0924-1884) 21 (2009), 1; 151-156

Vrsta, podvrsta i kategorija rada
Radovi u časopisima, prikaz, stručni

Ključne riječi
legal linguistics ; legal languages ; legal translation

Sažetak
The book under review is an important contribution to the young discipline of legal linguistics, better known in the French-speaking world as jurilinguistique. The author, Heikki Mattila, is professor of legal linguistics, the first holder of such a chair in Europe and perhaps the world as well. After a general introduction in Part I, Mattila crosses the boundaries of law into linguistics by analyzing legal language as a language for special purposes in Part II, which contains a chapter on legal terminology. In Part III he focuses on the major legal languages with individual chapters on the Heritage of Legal Latin, Legal German, Legal French and Legal English. The main themes are repeated and integrated in the brief conclusion in Part IV. A broad survey of interdisciplinary literature is cited in the Bibliography. The author’ s message for translators is clear: to avoid the numerous pitfalls of legal translation, one must constantly take account of the “ terminological interaction between legal languages” . This requires going beyond the term to investigate the underlying concepts of potentially equivalent terms in different legal systems. In essence, this is the key to successful translation because the translator must possess in- depth knowledge of the concepts of different legal languages in order to understand the source text and evaluate the adequacy of a potential equivalent in the target legal system on the basis of comparative conceptual analysis.

Izvorni jezik
Engleski

Znanstvena područja
Filologija

POVEZANOST RADA