Legal Communication in International Settings: Interlingual Cultural Issues in Croatian Legal Communication across Professional Contexts

Comparative Company Law

Abstract. The present paper aims to provide a systematic account of the links between the communicative functions of comparative law and legal translation. The role of these fields in legal communication, as well as the essential interrelationship between law and language, are well-known, making legal communication one of the several points of contact between comparative law and legal translation. Yet, it seems further elaboration is needed on how their communicative functions relate and, perhaps, how they can be helpful to each other in pursuing the common goal of improving legal communication worldwide. This research problem is also important from the perspective of the interdisciplinary encounters of both fields, which, albeit intertwined, have distinct processes and aims. To achieve the above goal, the present paper – drawing on a review of legal translation and comparative law literature – identifies the communicative functions of comparative law and legal translation and juxtaposes them. This is done in an attempt to find similarities and differences as well as point out areas where these functions can be mutually useful. Based on the results obtained, it is submitted that comparative law and legal translation can support each other, but this does not happen automatically and is influenced by the awareness of the other field’s intellectual repertoire as well as openness to interdisciplinarity, including in education. As the paper is theoretical in nature, it can be seen as providing a framework for future, empirically-oriented research into how comparative law and legal translation support each other in specific contexts.

Legal communication plays a critical role in shaping access to justice and promoting equity within legal systems. This study examines the intersection between legal discourse and social justice, emphasizing the importance of clear, inclusive, and effective communication practices across legal settings. Drawing on theoretical perspectives, historical developments, and practical case studies, the paper explores how legal language, courtroom interactions, media representations, and advocacy efforts influence public understanding and legal outcomes—particularly for marginalized communities. It investigates how legal practitioners, NGOs, and community stakeholders contribute to democratizing access to law through outreach, education, and reform. Additionally, it highlights challenges such as legal jargon, systemic bias, and the implications of emerging technologies on legal communication. The analysis culminates in identifying strategies to strengthen legal communication in the service of social justice, including plain language initiatives, legal education reform, and community-engaged approaches. Through this multifaceted inquiry, the research underscores legal communication’s pivotal function in ensuring fairness, transparency, and empowerment within legal systems. Keywords: Legal Communication, Social Justice, Access to Justice, Legal Education, Plain Language Law, Legal Practitioners, Community Engagement.

This work is aimed at visualizing the importance of legal language in guaranteeing legal certainty that may minimize as well as eliminate the differences of interpretation among of legal drafters, legislators, other legal officers in order to create justice for all. In practice, those differences root at three core problems: (i) inability of legal drafters or legislators in formulating rules into appropriate legal language; (ii) the weaknesses of legal officers interpreting the legal language; and (iii) the lack of knowledge of society in understanding the legal language. For that reason, this work will elaborate and discuss the way to design, to formulate and to function the norms and mechanism of legal language that can strengthen the degree of legal certainty. In this context, it emphasizes the importance of several core elements that can guarantee the legal certainty that are characteristics and standard guidance in utilizing the legal language. In detail, those characteristics can seen at its clarity and its consistency. At the end, this work will show the standard and steps in designing and formulating and using the legal language that may strengthen the degree of legal certainty, which in turn to create justice for all. Keywords: legal language , legal certainty, the law, justice, legal elements DOI : 10.7176/JLPG/81-11

Legal communication plays a pivotal role in the interpretation, application, and accessibility of law. However, marginalized communities characterized by social, economic, cultural, and linguistic disenfranchisement continue to face systemic barriers that hinder effective communication within legal systems. This paper examines the intricate relationship between legal discourse and marginalized populations by examining the structural, linguistic, and institutional barriers that inhibit access to justice. Drawing on interdisciplinary perspectives from law, psychology, and communication studies, the paper analyzes how legal language, courtroom norms, attorney-client dynamics, and cultural misunderstandings collectively contribute to legal disenfranchisement. Through case studies, technological considerations, and discussions on legal literacy, the research highlights the critical need for culturally competent legal practices, improved public legal education, and reforms in legal ethics and policy. Ultimately, the paper advocates for inclusive legal communication strategies that empower marginalized voices, foster trust, and promote equitable participation in the justice system. Keywords: Legal communication, Marginalized communities, Legal literacy, Cultural competency, Access to justice, Legal ethics, Language barrier.

The paper encompasses such fields as language, communication, text, law in terms of legal communication. According to language, I try to define the language itself as well as the linguistic focusing mainly on accomplishments of De Saussure. Secondly, it was introduced the subject of communication and its history while taking into consideration the purpose of the paper: legal communication. Legal communication is based on juridical language and legal language. I discussed them and emphasised distinctions between them. This part of the paper, which I can describe as an introduction part, ends with an indication of the research on the field of legal communication. The second part deals in general with communication and problems concerning this matter. I paid attention to the problem of communicativeness, because this matter is not as easy to be provided in legal communication as it seems to be. I moved on to the text as a part of legal communication, its main assumptions which by scholars are perceived as unable to be fulfilled and levels of interpretation this kind of text. This topic is followed by the issue of terminology which is the key to understand the text relating to law. Then I come back to the language, however, this time I point out the command of Polish language, its culture and the language of law stressing aspects regarding correctness. I decided also to include the subject of legal translation which apart from the issues mentioned above needs the specialised knowledge. The final part presents the main thoughts and my conclusions noticing the mutual influence between presented areas as well as the general need of expanding knowledge specifically in relation to language and law.

Comparative Company Law 2018

The language of law has played a pivotal role in shaping societies, institutions, and justice systems across time. This study critically examines the evolution and function of legal language within historical legal texts, tracing its development from early jurisprudential codes to modern legal frameworks. Drawing from a range of linguistic, hermeneutic, and legal-philosophical approaches, the paper explores how legal terminology, structures, and interpretive practices have transformed in tandem with shifts in political authority, cultural context, and societal needs. Special emphasis is placed on the intersection of language, power, and accessibility, revealing how legal language has often both empowered and excluded. By analyzing selected legal documents from various epochs, including Roman law, medieval European codices, and early modern statutory texts, this paper evaluates how legal meaning is constructed and understood. It also highlights contemporary challenges in legal interpretation arising from ambiguities, translation issues, and the specialized nature of legal discourse. The study advocates for a re-evaluation of the linguistic practices of legal professionals to promote inclusivity, precision, and transparency in legal communication. Keywords: Legal language, legal history, historical legal texts, hermeneutics, legal terminology, law and linguistics, interpretation.

Legal jargon, often perceived as complex and inaccessible, serves as a cornerstone of precision in legal communication. This paper examines the linguistic structures and nuances that define legal language, highlighting its role in ensuring clarity, uniformity, and precision within the legal system. It examines the advantages and challenges posed by legal jargon, particularly in fostering inclusion versus alienation of laypersons. A comparative analysis of legal terminology across common law, civil law, and religious law systems underscores the cultural and systemic influences shaping legal language. Finally, practical challenges in decoding legal jargon are discussed, emphasizing the need for a balance between professional specificity and public accessibility. The paper advocates for enhanced legal education and communication strategies to bridge the gap between legal professionals and the public, ensuring legal processes remain both precise and inclusive. Keywords: Legal Jargon, Linguistic Nuances, Legal Language, Legal Systems, Common Law.

Reviewed by: Multimodal conduct in the law: Language, gesture and materiality in legal interaction by Gregory Matoesian and Kristin Enola Gilbert Elizabeth Mertz Multimodal conduct in the law: Language, gesture and materiality in legal interaction. By Gregory Matoesian and Kristin Enola Gilbert. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018. Pp. 262. ISBN 9781108402866. $33.99. In this impressive volume, Gregory Matoesian and Kristin Enola Gilbert provide the field of law-and-language studies with an important set of analytic tools, insisting that systematic study of multimodal conduct be integrated into research on legal communication. In particular, M&G focus on modes of communication such as gesture, gaze, posture, movement, and speakers' interactions with physical objects—modes that have not received as much attention within language-and-law research as has legal language in a more traditional conception. For scholars who are unfamiliar with studies of multimodal conduct, the book offers a rigorous but accessible introduction to the field, along with sophisticated analyses of legal interactions demonstrating the value of the authors' approach. For linguists, sociolinguists, and linguistic anthropologists more generally, the volume offers an inventive entry in the growing literature integrating multimodal analysis into microanalysis of linguistic exchanges—and the macroanalysis of language within institutions. For those interested in research on legal language, this study advances the field through its comprehensive vision of how we can incorporate multimodal analysis into existing paradigms. One of the big problems with incorporating multimodal conduct into our studies of linguistic exchanges in general—and courtroom discourse in particular—is the sheer volume of that kind of conduct. As M&G amply demonstrate, every second of our interactions with each other contains multitudes. It was already challenging enough to perform detailed analyses of language in legal [End Page 425] and other settings, without adding this avalanche of additional data. It has been common in sociolinguistic, linguistic anthropological, conversation-analytic, and other forms of detailed language research to include in our transcripts a smattering of audible features (see e.g. Hirsch 1998, Matoesian 2001, Richland 2008). Examples include notations for pauses, sound prolongation, emphasis, loudness, overlapping or cut-off speech, and so on. In that tradition, analyses of short sequences of talk can take whole chapters. Now imagine adding to those analyses and transcripts the dense thicket of gesture, gaze, shifts in body position, movement, and more! In this volume, to give one small example, the authors introduce a series of symbols just to capture aspects of one kind of gesture ('beat gestures'; see p. xii). In addition, they use pictures and descriptions to fill in details of the multimodal conduct under scrutiny. So in light of the fact that dissecting a brief interaction in this way can occupy entire chapters, readers could understandably worry about the book moving randomly all over the map as it dives into small bits of much longer interactions. Instead, M&G offer a set of analyses organized around an exacting theoretical framework as they highlight particular instances of multimodal conduct in a single trial. The selection of examples is methodical and systematic. This is an exciting development for law-and-language analysts who seek to integrate unquestionably important multimodal aspects of communication into their research. As the authors note, there is a significant literature in the field of gesture studies, in addition to growing bodies of research in other areas pertinent to multimodal analysis. However, 'the study of gesture (as it integrates other modal forms) is conspicuously absent in language and law research', and 'the study of legal interaction is largely absent in the field of gesture studies' (xi). Their welcome intervention seeks to remedy those notable gaps. The book is divided into three sections. Part I uses studies of multimodal conduct to uncover microlevel processes through which participants negotiate identity in court. This turns out to be very important in everything from establishing expert witnesses' authority to battles over gender inequality—and, one suspects, other forms of social hierarchy—within legal settings. Part II turns to issues of motivation, control, and credibility as they play out in trial practice within a dense thicket of multimodal interchanges. These are layered over the...

This paper considers the role of comparative law in legal education from the interdisciplinary perspective of law and language. While legal education is traditionally monojural, modern law practice is globalised and demands a broader legal skillset and comparative perspectives in order to navigate legal systems and regulatory frameworks in an informed, effective manner. This is particularly salient where legal systems, structures or rules fundamentally differ between jurisdictions, resulting in conceptual incommensurability and thus impacting on legal communication and practice. Considering that this issue is not expressly addressed in legal education, an interdisciplinary approach to teaching legal methods and skills is proposed, aiming to develop the student’s interjural competence and ability to understand and convey intended meaning across legal cultures. In doing so, the approach takes a holistic view of the operation of the law with the inextricable link between the law and language at its centre, drawing on comparative law, language teaching and translation methodologies. The paper concludes by suggesting that the law curriculum would be considerably enhanced by inclusion of comparative and linguistic perspectives developed through immersive learning experience, with a view to equipping graduates with interdisciplinary tools for effective legal communication and practice across jurisdictions.

With this paper, I suggest a multiperspectivist approach for assessing conceptual legal knowledge with relevance for the translation of legal terms in translation between two or more different legal systems. The basic quest is to present a set of categories and analytical approaches for legal translators to generate (collect) and classify knowledge necessary for their professional conceptual needs. In this paper, I will focus on the translational, juridical, and cognitive basics of such an approach. In order to cope with the broad range of possible translational purposes in different translational situations and choose relevantly between alternative formulations, translators need methods and strategies in order to construct the necessary conceptual knowledge. This presupposes a broad knowledge structured in ways that enable the translator to recognize relevant characteristics of legal systems and relevant differences between different legal systems. Concerning translational theory, the basis is the functional theory of translation as adapted to legal translation, based upon the idea of translation as choice between alternatives and distinguishing between documentary translation, at one end of a scale, and instrumental translation, at the other. This basis and the distinction presuppose relevant knowledge from comparative law. Hence, existing approaches and fundamental tenets concerning comparative law inside and outside of translation are presented. In order for knowledge to be presented in a manageable way with relevance to translators, I work with the approach of concept frames as basic unit of knowledge gathering and categorization. This way of presenting knowledge is embedded more generally in a knowledge communication approach, focusing on knowledge asymmetry. Within this general framework, the multiperspectivist approach combines insights from cultural studies (especially the study of law-as-culture), law as a disciplinary social system, and communicative interaction generating meanings in legal communication, also across national borders.

Comparative company law is at once very old and very modern. It is very old because ever since companies and company laws first existed, trade has not stopped at the frontiers of countries and states. The persons concerned, practitioners as well as rule-makers, had to look beyond their own city, country, rules, and laws. But comparative company law is also very modern. Most comparative work has focused on the main areas of private law, such as contract and torts, rather than company law. This article focuses on law and related rulemaking. It tries at least to touch upon the company law of five legal families in an eclectic way. It examines traditional and modern contracts in company law and comparative law, the harmonization of company law in the European Union, capital market law, and perspectives for future research.

This article analyzes the relationship between legal language translation and cultural elements. The author highlights the existence of cultural deficiencies in the process of legal language translation and their significance in cross-cultural communication. The article discusses how cross-cultural differences and cultural elements impact legal language, as well as how to address the cultural gaps that arise in translation. The analysis sheds light on the unique characteristics of legal terminology, their meanings, and the necessity of interpreting them correctly within various cultural contexts. The article also provides recommendations for improving cross-cultural understanding and ensuring effective legal communication in legal translation. This work is of significant importance to professionals in the fields of legal linguistics and cultural studies.

This thesis explores problems with legal communication as a social problem in which discourse and the shared beliefs of groups play a crucial role. It concludes that plain language is a problematic construct in the law because there are costs of systematically misrepresenting an intention to communicate effectively as the solution to a complex set of social and legal issues. The study generates new practical theory that has potential to transform practice by raising awareness of the extent to which shared beliefs about legal language, plain language and effective legal communication are reconstructed in everyday discourse.