Chapter Eight
186
the complexity of the common law culture, thus reducing the instances of
context-based terminological displacement. From the formal side, one
expects a tool which is user friendly and approachable in the sense of
efficient and time saving input and output mechanisms, so that the user
can retrieve the data fast and in various conFig.urations as well as update
the system for the sake of its effective sustainability.
The research discussed in the foregoing was aimed at the construal of a
terminological database in the field of law, referred to as the Repository of
Legal Terms (RLT).^2 The main assumptions related to the macro- and
micro-structure of the said database are determined by (1) the findings
found in the literature of the subject (the state of art in the field of
lexicography) and (2) the didactic and translatory experience of the author,
which says that – to the best possible effect – processing of legal
terminology is to be largely conditioned by the specificity of the specialist
language in question. The latter involves issues related to the
interdisciplinarity, intertextuality and normatively prescribed language
formula with reference to the field-specific and domain-related variants of
legalese (WiĊcáawska 2013, WiĊcáawska 2014), its heterogeneous
character, its social variants, and – finally – its illocutionary force, for
example in the context of its performativity (WiĊcáawska 2015). Also, in
order to effectively cope with the complex nature of the task, when
designing the macro- and micro-structure of the database the author took
into account the legal and theoretical aspects related to the structure of the
legal regulations and some of the principles of legal reasoning.
The paper aims at (1) presenting very schematically the interface of the
RLT, (2) outlining the mainstream assumptions related to the applications
of cognitive linguistics to lexicographic practice in general, (3) and –
finally – demonstrating the consistency of the theoretical framework of
cognitive linguistics to the structure of the RLT.
(^2) The RLT is referred to as a database, a tool or an application. Although it was
structured on the basis of the theoretical assumptions of lexicography and it
follows some of the technical and function-oriented guidelines presented by the art
of dictionary compilation, the author modestly refers to the product as a database
for a few reasons. It is assumed that the status of a database does not necessarily
require the highly coherent and consistent structuring expected of a dictionary.
This refers to the arrangement of entries, the distribution structure, macrostructure,
microstructure, frame structure, reference structure and access structure
(Bergenholtz, Tarp 1995, Hartmann 1983, Svensén 1993).