Abstract
In this article, we analyse, on the basis of comparable corpora (Dutch - Spanish) of the same legal genre, i.e. the Articles of Association, an aspect of cross-linguistic variation, namely the expression of deontic modality. We also examine the ways in which the findings of the study can be processed into a bilingual, translator-friendly legal termbase (JuriGenT). In doing so, we map out the asymmetry, which is mainly attributable to the use of tenses, and duly process this in the relevant term records, taking the view that the translator should be aware of the similarities and differences of their usage so as to be able to make well-considered translation decisions.
Highlights
In this article, we seek to demonstrate the way corpus-driven terminography based on comparable corpora inevitably encompasses critical discourse analysis
Our research concentrates on JuriGenT, a bilingual Dutch–Spanish database of legal terminology related to one specific legal genre, namely the Articles of Association
With the help of these comparable corpora, we examine the crosslinguistic variation of the studied genre in terms of use of tenses and modal verbs when expressing deontic concepts
Summary
We seek to demonstrate the way corpus-driven terminography based on comparable corpora inevitably encompasses critical discourse analysis. The termbase JuriGenT (which stands for Juridische Terminografie aan Universiteit Gent – Legal Terminography at Ghent University), is based on six premises (see Vanden Bulcke & De Groote, 2011) It is: corpus-driven, on the basis of a comparable, Dutch and Spanish corpus; specialised, containing legal terminology from the Articles of Association (corporate law); systemic, Belgian and Spanish legislation; usable for translations into and out of the languages concerned; with access to the entries, both alphabetical and via tree structures; with a specific target audience in mind We opted for three types of units: terminological units, units that combine legal paradigms, and phraseological units (Vanden Bulcke & De Groote, 2011) As the latter move a step closer to discourse analysis, the database dovetails with the new socio-cognitive terminological trend (Stubbs, 2004; Temmerman, 2000; Teubert, 2002), which, in addition to terms and fixed compound words, takes cognitively justified patterns and their specific linguistic expressions into consideration.
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