Cognitive Approaches to Specialist Languages

(Tina Sui) #1

Chapter Eight
194


the term order. When we narrow the search for the semantic category
REFERENCE TO LEGAL PROVISIONS the term order records the
equivalent 'postanowienie', on the ground of both commercial and
insolvency law. In turn, within the semantic category labelled as
EXERCISING RIGHTS order in its nominal form is translated as 'zapis',
and additionally it is recorded in its verbal category 'zarządziü'; and as a
component of a subordinating conjunction in order to 'Īeby'. Finally, the
use of the said term within the domain referred to as ENTITY is limited to
its premodifying function as in ordering party 'zamawiający'.
The context-related information included in the individual entries can
also be discussed from the point of view of the encyclopedic component of
a bilingual database (Svensén 1993: 166). It has already been said that
inclusion of encyclopedic information is very much expected in specialist
dictionaries, as supported by the earlier quotation from Schaeder,
Bergenholtz (1994: 145-146). Traditionally, it is assumed that it makes up
part of the definition and the extralinguistic information serves the purpose
of 'meaning discrimination' (Svensén 1993: 166). In the case of bilingual
dictionaries it may take the form of a bracketed note, placed next to the
target language equivalent. In the case of the RLT the user is given access
to information about the legal provision in which the specific term was
translated in a given way. This information that accompanies the
equivalent in the target language may be said to be of encyclopedic
character. The user is provided with the extralinguistically motivated
system of conceptual knowledge underlying the linguistic meaning which



  • in the case of legal language, as was already said – may be assumed to
    be understood as systemically arranged legal concepts making up the legal
    system, structured along the operational principles of cognitive processes
    involved in the cognition of extralinguistic reality.^7


(^7) The reference to the specific legal provision that is placed in the dictionary entry
next to the target language equivalent may be considered to be a significant factor
that – at the encyclopaedic level of the term meaning/encyclopedic information –
constitutes a system-specific ground in the target legal culture for distinguishing
polysemous terms/equivalents. It is a rule in legal terminology that the same terms
relate to distinct concepts and the relevant reference is established by way of
reference to the definition included in the relevant legal provision. (Malinowski
2012:51-71). Note the example of the term przedsiĊbiorca 'an entrepreneur' which
has a few definitions and thus may be said to correspond to a few concepts
depending on the field of law, i.e. Ustawa o Swobodzie DziaáalnoĞci Gospodarczej
(art. 4 item 1 and 2), Ustawa o Zwalczaniu Nieuczciwej Konkurencji (Art. 2),
Kodeks Cywilny (Art. 43, mark 1). Including a reference to a legal provision solves
the problem of polysemy here. The data included in the RLT were extracted from
the corpus of parallel texts and the translation of these texts is believed to be

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