CIRCUMNAVIGATING NON-EQUIVALENCE IN LEGAL LANGUAGES: A TRILINGUAL CASE STUDY OF GENERIC-SPECIFIC CONCEPTS AND TERMS

Abstract

Studies of Language for specific purposes (LSP) aim to mastering particular terms of the target discourse community in the given field of knowledge. This cannot be achieved without comprehending the concepts denoted by the terms and their generic-specific relations which is not always the case in popular usage by media and translation. The given research is a small-scale analysis of conceptualisation and denotation of bribery offences in different legal settings (the international conventions and three national legal systems – the UK, Lithuanian and Russian) intended to expose the way of circumnavigating non-equivalency for LSP/ESP (English for Specific Purposes) learners. Firstly, bribery concepts in two international conventions are analysed and their terminological denotations in English, Lithuanian and Russian versions of the conventions are extracted. Secondly, functional equivalents of the international bribery concepts (the generic concept of bribery and the concepts forming the dichotomies of bribery types and forms) in the UK, LT and RU national legal settings are determined. Finally, terminological counterparts denoting the bribery concepts in the investigated legal settings are established. The analysis is performed using the methodology of contrastive conceptual analysis which focuses on logical relationship among the concepts, namely hierarchical genus-species relations, in lexical semantics referred to as hyper-hyponymic relations. The methodology enables to compare conceptualisation and denotation of bribery offences in three LSP have and highlight their incongruities. The procedure and the results described in the paper are believed to be valuable to the learners and teachers of LSP/ESP, to the translators and could enhance efficient international professional communication.Key words: conceptual-terminological system, non-equivalence, legal terminology, bribery