New Insights into the Semantics of Legal Concepts and the legal Dictionary

This book focuses on legal concepts from the dual perspective of law and terminology. While legal concepts frame legal knowledge and take center stage in law, the discipline of terminology has traditionally been about concept description. Exploring topics common to both disciplines such as meaning, conceptualization and specialized knowledge transfer, the book gives a state-of-the-art account of legal interpretation, legal translation and legal lexicography with special emphasis on EU law. The special give-and-take of law and terminology is illuminated by real-life legal cases which demystify the ways courts do things with concepts. This original approach to the semantics of legal concepts is then incorporated into the making of a legal dictionary, thus filling a gap in the theory and practice of legal lexicography. With its rich repertoire of examples of legal terms in different languages, the book provides a blend of theory and practice, making it a valuable resource not only for scholars of law, language and lexicography but also for legal translators and students.

Terms, concepts and other conundrums -- Investigating legal concepts, language and the law -- (How) do courts do things with words? -- Understanding EU legal concepts -- Multilingualism and EU legal concepts -- EU legal translation and the challenges for the dictionary -- Multilingual legal dictionaries -- Methodology for the making of a termontological dictionary -- Concluding remarks and directions for future research