1 Mediating Culture in Legal Translation and Interpretation

As numerous scholars point out the translation of a legal text should exert the same effects in the target legal system as it does in the source legal system [3, 31, 39]. It makes legal translators’ work particularly intricate as they not only need to understand the legal concepts in both systems but also, as Wagner et al. [45] emphasize, have to be able to engage in “culture mediation”. Legal notions and concepts are deeply rooted in the culture, history, philosophy, ethics as well as the religions of a particular nation, therefore, the significance of the cultural context for law and legal language is irrefutable. Sarcevic [39] enumerates the knowledge of cultural differences between the source language and target language as one of the essential factors that affect translation and interpretation in the field of law.

In that vein, it is noteworthy to mention the research conducted by Kordić on the usage and role of metaphors in legal languages [28]. A metaphor as an element of figurative speech which is an integral part of the cultural heritage of every nation has always been perceived as a challenge for translators and interpreters [15, 28, 38]. In her studies, Kordić [28] attempts to prove that metaphor was not only intensely present in the history of law but is still clearly present in the language of both legal theory and practice. In the theoretical part of her research, she discusses metaphors in law both from a historical perspective and as an element of contemporary courtroom discourse. The empirical part of the paper refers to the research of metaphors which was conducted on two different corpora i.e. expressions in Legal English excerpted from three textbooks of English for Legal Purposes and the corpus of the Treaty Establishing the European Community–consolidated version. The findings of the research indicate that although metaphors are frequently used in theoretical legal texts, especially in the areas of penal law, company law, and contract law, it has not been confirmed that they are strongly present in relatively young and complex fields of law. Moreover, the studies imply that complex system metaphors prevail with no particular reference to the type of the analysed text, however, the frequency of the specific type of complex system conceptual metaphors strongly depends on the type of legal text.

Translators and interpreters may use various techniques and strategies to compensate for their deficiencies in the legal terminology in a particular legal system. The comparative analysis of legal terminology might be one of the useful tools to mitigate the clash of cultures in legal translation and interpretation [26]. In that vein, it is worth mentioning the research conducted by Janigova and presented in her paper entitled “The Governing-Law Anchor in Legal Translation-A Homicide Case Study” [25]. The author tested the governing-law anchor in the comparative analysis of the Homicide conceptual area in the Slovak law, English law, and the US Model Penal Code by combining the legilinguistic and comparative law tools merged in the comparative componential analysis (CCA). The whole study encompassed the source concept mining, the CCA of functional equivalents against the source concept intensional and extensional parameters and marks and the substantiation of translation options under the equivalent effect principle. The research revealed that both the CCA parametrization method and juritraductological approach might be useful in legal translation. In addition, correct anchoring of the comparative analysis of particular terms may serve as a valuable tool for legal translators to make the right choices as far as target terminological concepts are concerned and to solve the problems arising from the imperfect or partial equivalence between the two legal systems [10, p. 42] or/and the two legal cultures.

Another example of how the legal culture affects the translator’s decisions regarding the equivalents used in translation is provided by Matulewska and Oh [29], who in their article analysed the translation into English and Korean of the old Polish penal law terminology used by Adam Mickiewicz in his eminent work entitled “Master Thaddeus, or the Last Foray in Lithuania: A nobility’s Tale of the Years 1811–1812, the Twelve Books of Verse”. This work, of one of the greatest Polish poets, has been translated into English several times and into Korean once—the authors in their research concentrated on two translations into English [7, 32] and one into Korean [13] with a focus on the excerpts of the poem which contain penal law terminology. As Matulewska and Oh [29] highlight, the translators must have had to face numerous challenges, starting from conveying the meaning into English and Korean, which itself is a convoluted task, translating legal terminology, which is system-bound, as well as deciphering the meanings of abundant already archaic terms—it is noteworthy to pinpoint here that Mickiewicz portraying Polish mentality referred to crimes and penalties enlisted in the Third Lithuanian Statute, the law which is not available for reference purposes in the modernised script version. The findings of the research reveal that the analysed terminology in most of the cases is obsolete and legal system-bound but the translators managed to convey the appropriate meanings of the terms in question successfully by the application of various translation strategies and techniques. Moreover, the research presented above serves as a good example that the awareness and/or the knowledge of historical, cultural and social contexts of both source and target language play a fundamental role and significantly affect the quality of the translation, especially of the texts like the one presented above.

2 Legal Discourse and/in Legal Communication

This part of this essay refers to legal discourse, particularly with reference to its role and usage in legal communication. Legal discourse may be interpreted broadly, and include: courtroom discourse (or court discourse), legislative discourse and judicial discourse but is not only limited to those listed above. The research presented below serves as the best example.

The first paper in this section written by Edyta Więcławska titled.

“Approaching Legal Multinomials from the Sociolinguistic Perspective–Insights into Authorship-based Distinction” is devoted to the issue of multinomials and their role as authorship-based style distinctions in legal communication [46]. In her research, the author endeavours to study the use of multinomials in company registration discourse contrasting the language used by legal experts and lay people. Two research questions are posed in this context: Does the use of multinomials by the two categories of authors show quantitatively distinct patterns? How can the quantitative distinctions in point be accounted for in terms of the communicative functions pursued by the authors and what patterns emerge with regard to the construal of professional group identities? The evidence from the study proved the heterogeneous character of legal language or legal discourse as far as the specific communicative environment is concerned. Moreover, the authorship-based distinctions appear not to be chaotic and could be categorised. As regards the other research question, the author concludes that multinomials which are commonly perceived as markers of highly conventional style are not treated as stylistic phenomena attributed to expert communication to any further extent. As Więcławska underscores [46] “the immersion in a corporate culture induces the dissemination of specific stylistic traditions involving also the use of sophisticated formulae even among non-expert drafters”, which can be “positive operation of the intertextuality-based framework of legal communication across various authorship categories.

Another author, Rafat Yahya Alwazna in his paper entitled “The Relation between Explicitation and Translation Expertise in the Rendition of Nominalisation and Participles in Legal Qurʾānic Verses Specific to Purification and Prayer into English: A Corpus-Based Study [2], exploits the legal discourse found in the Qurʾān to study the relation between explicitation and translation expertise in the rendition of nominalisation and participles in verses of Qurʾān specific to purification and prayer. This corpus analysis exclusively focuses on the legal verses, which have been divided and classified into various topics by Alinizi [1]. The findings of the above research indicate that there is an evident link between explicitation and translation expertise in the rendition of the examined syntactic features, which might have, as Alwazna [2] comments, implications for future studies conducted on the same or other topics in similar or different legal contexts. The latter issue might be of special interest to those academics who, for example, wish to explore whether or not the difference between Islamic Law represented by the Qurʾān and Common Law or Civil Law leads to other research outcomes.

Milena Hadryan and Joanna Rutecka-Góra in the paper “Readability and Clarity of Individual Pension Product Contracts” present their research which refers to both legal discourse and legal communication [22]. The main aim of the study was to analyse the readability and clarity of economic specialised texts on supplementary individual pensions available on the Polish market in 2017. In terms of the language, the texts were assessed utilising the “Jasnopis” application, whereas the structure and the content of the agreements were evaluated by expert linguists. The study was also complemented by a so-called cloze text, which provided more detailed information as far as readability for a specific reader is concerned. The results of the investigation imply very low readability of the documents (i.e. they are mainly understood by people with at least a master’s degree or adequate). In addition, the psycholinguistic cloze test indicates the lowest reading comprehension score. As regards clarity, only 1% of the texts have been assessed as clear. The evidence showed that the documents prepared by life insurance companies were the clearest, whereas banking documents, in contrast, represent the lack of clarity, however, it is important to note here that clarity is not correlated with their comprehensibility since all the agreements in question are equally incomprehensive to the readers. The results of this research support the idea that to make legal communication more effective there is a strong need to introduce and enforce some legal requirements for higher readability and clarity of the documents provided to various customers both at the stage of conclusion as well as of application the provisions in question.

This part of the essay deals with the role of emotions in the language of law and legal communication. As Maria Angeles Orts highlights in her article “Studying Legal Persuasion and Emotion in Spanish and English: An Advocate General’s Dismissal of the Rule‑of‑law Challenge by Hungary and Poland”, “law is the most overtly power-bearing institution of the state, where the power of coercion is legitimately and explicitly exercised”[36]. She highlights, following Sellers’ [41] standpoint, that apart from reasonable and moral arguments, emotions play a key role in this process of legitimisation as “the sense of justice is the most preeminent human emotion”. Based on the conclusions elaborated by the Advocate General, Manuel Campos in their original Spanish, and their subsequent translation into English on the challenge by Hungary and Poland of the regulation establishing a ‘conditionality regime” she examines the significance of persuasion in the field of law and the role of emotion in the transmission of such persuasion. The results of the research confirm a strong persuasive character of both the source and target texts, despite subtle but clear dissimilarities, which is rooted in the negative emotion of fear and the positive emotion of trust. This again proves that justice is not only the outcome of reasoning but appeals to most fundamental human emotions too.

Another example of how emotions affect the language of law and legal communication is provided by Cudowska [16], who in her article “The Language of Compassion. A few lessons from Michigan lawyers how to communicate with personal injury clients” analyses how personal injury lawyers assess intangible interests of their clients. Cudowska refers to the emotion of empathy and compassion highlighting that narratives relating to compassionate practices might be binary. On one hand, some scholars consider compassion and empathy as positive forces in the legal profession, on the other hand, the adversarial nature of the legal profession might result in compassion fatigue [11, 35] Nevertheless, a good lawyer, as highlighted by Buhler [12], will be able to understand not only their own emotions but also the emotions of their clients. The research presented in the abovementioned paper was conducted among both plaintiff and/or defense lawyers who also acted as mediators in personal injury disputes that were settled out of court. The results of the semi-structured interviews indicate that compassionate communication settlement processes can bring a more satisfactory outcome for personal injury clients. which highlights the important role of emotions such as empathy and compassion in the legal communication processes.

The paper titled “The “Other” in Court: Islam and Muslims in Polish judicial opinions published online” by Ewa Górska and Anna Juzaszek also refers to emotions in the language of law and legal communication but approaches the problem from a slightly different perspective [21]. In their study, which is part of the project EMPATHY, the authors conducted a qualitative thematic analysis of 57 judicial opinions issued by the common courts in Poland and published online, in which Islam or being Muslim was mentioned as a circumstance of the case. The starting point for the above research was the assumption that Muslims are often subject to negative perceptions and hostility, which might have a negative impact on the adjudication of cases they are involved in. The study particularly aimed to examine the circumstances in which the said minority is invoked in judicial opinions in Poland as well as to present social perceptions of Islam (held by both the judges and the public). The findings of the study reveal that stereotypical opinions are noticeable in Polish courts, especially in the form of “accepted racism”, which is not considered biased and are held both by the public and judges. Nevertheless, it is noteworthy to remark that the final verdicts did not appear to be affected by the perception of Islam and that the judges tend to become more cautious and reflective, criticising the stigmatising opinion held by the public, particularly while adjudicating cases involving extreme prejudice against Muslims.

This part of the essay concludes with the research conducted by Tatiana Grieshofer presented in the paper “Court Forms Court Forms as Part of Online Courts: Elicitation and Communication in the Early Stages of Legal Proceedings” [20]. The research concerns the role of court forms as an interactive and essential genre in legal communication between legal and lay users (i.e. the judiciary/lawyers, self-represented litigants, or lawyers’ clients). The methodology incorporated by the author includes the combination of corpus linguistics and discourse analysis of two versions of the court form most frequently used by self-represented parties in England and Wales i.e. ‘Form C100: Apply for a court order to make arrangements for a child or resolve a dispute about their upbringing’. Both versions (the downloadable/pdf/paper version and the online one) elicit information about the nature of the application and guide how to fill in the form. The results of the research indicate that if carefully planned and guided, the digitalisation of court documents might significantly improve and facilitate the communication between lay and legal users hence resulting in, as Grieshofer puts it [20], enhancing “court users’ understanding of relevant principles and their active engagement with the development of narrativization to support their case. The findings of the above research also provide interesting insights into the challenges lay users experience while engaging with legal language in court forms or limitations and improvements the digital technology might offer to court users with presenting the relevant information, which gives us a wider perspective on the role of language in online courts in general.

3 Teaching Legal Languages and Legal Communication

As the ability to communicate effectively with others in the legal profession is of key importance, particularly when working in international settings, there is an incessant need to equip legal professionals with such linguistic competences, knowledge, and skills that are most valuable for their work. The ELP instructor’s task is quite challenging and demanding though, as apart from providing motivating, effective and engaging classes [5, 18, 43], they need to teach the language, which is strongly affected by ethics, philosophy, history [17], traditions and the culture of a particular nation [8, 19, 24, 27, 30, 33, 37, 40, 42, 44].

With that in mind, it is worth mentioning Bhatia’s paper [9], which points out that as a result of pedagogic convenience over the curriculum need, some skills and key genres, which are the core of legal discourse in the practice of law, are overlooked in pedagogic contexts and are not included in ELC (English for Legal Communication) curricula. Bhatia especially refers to legislative (or statutory) writing, which “demonstrates a typical and distinctive use of lexico-grammar, rhetorical devices, and other highly conventional and standardized semiotic resources, which are all important aspects of construction and interpretation of the law in legal practice” [9]. In addition, he remarks that including legislative genres in curricula design would serve as input to teaching materials, hence helping learners to understand and interpret various forms of legal communication such as cases, judgments, or contracts better and consequently equip them with the skills and abilities required in the professional settings.

In the context of instructing English for Legal Purposes, the research conducted by Chiknaverova [14] is also worth mentioning. The studies on second language vocabulary are quite extensive [4, 23, 24] however they mainly concern semantization for teaching purposes as such and teaching second language vocabulary in general. Only a few of the scholars refer to a more comprehensive overview of semantization [6, 34], therefore, Chiknaverova’s contribution may fill the gap in the area of lexical semantisation in teaching legal English, which appears to have not been adequately addressed to date. Chiknaverova’s studies focus on methods of semantization of Legal English vocabulary for teaching purposes and include several stages like collecting and analysing learners’ errors related to the use of vocabulary, classifying and grouping errors as regards the challenges they may pose and finally identifying and describing the most effective methods of semantization to address the learners’ difficulties. The findings reveal that the most frequent errors are caused by inadequate choice of the contextual meaning of a word and incorrect use of collocations. In addition, the research shows that the aforementioned errors can be remedied by various methods of semantization both translational and non-translational ones, like the use of direct translation, the use of definitions, or the identification of the meanings of words by familiar word-forming elements. Undoubtedly, the results of the studies may have practical applications in the process of designing ELC curricula or ELP instruction as addressing the appropriate attention to the correct use of the legal English vocabulary and preventing errors may contribute to increasing linguistic competences of the learners.

4 Concluding Remarks

Summing up, this paper illustrates the wide array of issues that might be of interest to scholars dealing with the languages of law and legal communication. The impact of culture, or more specifically legal culture has on the way legal languages are translated, interpreted, and taught, is one of these. The issue seems to have been researched to a large extent but new pieces of research offer valuable insights making the state of knowledge more complete. Likewise, legal discourse has been investigated by a large of body literature to date, however, most of the studies related to a wide range of lexical and syntactic complexities of legal discourse rather than to the impact it may have on legal communication. Interestingly, we can observe the growing number of research undertaken to examine the legal discourse from the sociolinguistic perspective and in light of technological advancement, which again may shed new light on the language of law and as a consequence contribute to more effective legal communication.