Abstract
The article addresses the issues of formation of legal terminology in Lithuanian and English. The terminology of Lithuanian law started to be formed at the beginning of the 20th century. Its development has been influenced by several political upheavals and has undergone considerable changes. Since new legal terms are constantly created, it is worthwhile to compare and contrast Lithuanian term formation tendencies with term formation traditions in other languages. Contrastive research not only reveals peculiarities of term formation in different languages, but allows researchers to see native terminology in a new light and assessing it more objectively. In this article, the Lithuanian constitutional law terms are compared with the English constitutional law terminology that has a long history dating back to the 13th century. The article analyses the sources and means of formation that have been used for the creation of Lithuanian and UK constitutional law terms and reveals important differences in legal term formation in these two languages. The authors expect that the findings of the research will provide useful information to the developers of Lithuanian legal terminology, as well as to the users of Lithuanian and English legal terms.
Highlights
Legal terms are the basis of a legal language as legal concepts are expressed via particular terms that are the basic instrument of communication among specialists of various areas
The majority of one-word terms of constitutional law in English come from external sources (85%); terms formed on the basis of internal sources make only 11%
In Lithuanian, on the contrary, terms formed on internal sources (76%) prevail over the external sources (2%)
Summary
Legal terms are the basis of a legal language as legal concepts are expressed via particular terms that are the basic instrument of communication among specialists of various areas. A development of precise, systematic and easy-to-use legal terminology as well as skills and accuracy of its use are important tasks of specialists of every nation. The terminology of Lithuanian law started to be formed alongside the restoration of the statehood of Lithuania in 1918 (Maksimaitis 2007: 7-13). During the Soviet period (1945-1990) Lithuanian legal terminology was formed according to general Soviet legal standards. New Lithuanian terms have been created to name new legal concepts. It is worthwhile to compare and contrast their formation with the traditions and new tendencies of term formation in other languages
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