CONTRASTIVE SEMANTIC ANALYSIS OF CONTRACT LAW TERMS IN STUDIES OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE FOR SPECIFIC PURPOSES

Abstract

The article is intended to present possibilities of using contrastive terminology analysis in teaching a foreign language, particularly concentrating on legal terminology and contract law. This paper has several aims. Firstly, it intends to overview foreign language teaching possibilities paying special attention to the method of contrastive semantic analysis and possible ways to involve corpus linguistics into the teaching/learning process. Secondly, it seeks to define specifics of legal terminology and contextual differences in Lithuanian, English and German contract law. Thirdly, the focus is also on semantic equivalence between lexical items of different languages. Fourthly, it presents a possible semantic analysis of very basic but at the same time quite complicated contract law terms in the EU languages. Three European languages (Lithuanian, English and German) that are widely used in commerce, logistics, administration and diplomacy are chosen for the analysis. The combination of the contrastive method and analysis of legal context of the chosen languages may reveal the different aspects of the terms. Theoretical frameworks and practical analysis presented in the article could be of great interest for LSP learners, terminologists, translators, teachers and dictionary compilers. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7220/2335-2027.7.3