sabato 22 dicembre 2007

Dibattito su inglese e università

Il Corriere della Sera di venerdì 21 dicembre (articolo a firma di Cristina Taglietti, pag. 55) torna sul tema, già trattato dallo stesso quotidiano, dei corsi universitari italiani impartiti in lingua inglese - per ora solo nelle materie tecnico-scientifiche - e lo fa per registrare l'autorevole reazione di una delle istituzioni storicamente a presidio della lingua italiana: l'Accademia della Crusca.
La notizia è che il presidente dell'Accademia, il linguista Francesco Sabatini, ha inviato ai ministri dell'Istruzione e dell'Università e Ricerca Scientifica una lettera aperta, che verrà diffusa anche a mezzo del semestrale Crusca per voi.
Sintetizzo le principali obiezioni del prof. Sabatini - per come riportate sul quotidiano - alla segnalata tendenza:
  1. La lingua italiana è poco nota agli studenti universitari italiani, specie per quanto riguarda la produzione scritta, gli stessi docenti di italiano non mostrano un'adeguata formazione;
  2. Il ricorso a docenti madrelingua potrebbe creare risultati discutibili nella selezione dei docenti, agevolando le carriere di quanti sappiano fare lezioni in lingua inglese con il rischio di trascurare le specifiche competenze disciplinari, che invece dovrebbero essere il reale banco di prova per salire in cattedra;
  3. Il rischio-emarginazione per fasce di potenziali studenti scoraggiati dall'impiego dell'inglese nella didattica;
  4. La maggior parte dei laureati finisce col lavorare in Italia e dovrà interagire con lavoratori di lingua italiana anche su tematiche tecniche;
  5. Introduzione di un nuovo bilinguismo, simile a quello medievale (compresenza di latino e volgare), dopo un faticoso cammino storico volto alla diffusione della lingua italiana: le fasce popolari sarebbero le più esposte alle conseguenze negative di un simile ritorno al passato.

L'articolo si conclude registrando un parere di segno opposto di un altro autorevole accademico, nonchè accademico della Crusca, a suo agio nella trattazione di simili temi, il prof. Tullio De Mauro. Riporto una sintesi delle sue affermazioni:

  1. Il Content Language Integrated Learning è un eccellente e ampiamente sperimentato strumento per accostarsi ad una nuova lingua;
  2. Determinanti sono le modalità attuative con cui simili scelte trovano realizzazione, non possono tollerarsi iniziative al solo scopo pubblicitario;
  3. Non si può ignorare l'importanza dell'inglese: ha finito addirittura con l'influenzare la destinazione dei fondi europei, la scarsa preparazione dei deputati italiani nella conoscenza delle lingue straniere avrebbe loro impedito di partecipare efficacemente ai lavori a Strasburgo, ciò a differenza dei colleghi spagnoli, che perciò hanno portato a casa più risorse per il proprio Paese.

Si tratta di un dibattito di sicuro interesse, di cui si attendono le prossime puntate.

Andrea Falcone

lunedì 26 novembre 2007

Il difficile cammino dell'internazionalizzazione

Il Corriere della Sera di ieri ha dedicato ben due pagine al mondo universitario italiano ed ai cambiamenti in atto (pag. 23, articolo a firma di Gianna Fregonara e pag. 24, articolo a firma di Gabriella Jacomella). Entrambi i temi trattati avevano già trovato attenzione all’interno del presente blog: l’internazionalizzazione dell’università attraverso la metodologia CLIL (si vedano in particolare: Corsi di Giurisprudenza in lingua inglese e Anche in Italia l'MBA parla inglese) e il fenomeno della crescente mobilità studentesca, specie nell’area post lauream, nel convincimento diffuso nella popolazione studentesca che questo possa contribuire a migliorare le proprie prospettive occupazionali.
Il fenomeno – come registrato dal primo quotidiano italiano – interessa primariamente le facoltà tecnico-scientifiche. Il Rettore del Politecnico di Torino ha pensato ad uno sconto di millecinquecento euro sulle tasse scolastiche quale misura incentivante per coloro i quali intendano iscriversi ai corsi di laurea interamente in lingua inglese. “Rendere internazionale un ateneo non significa subire l’inglese per tutti. L’Università è anche servizio agli studenti oltre che il tempio della nostra cultura” (pag.23), afferma Bruno Mellano, della Rosa nel Pugno, in una dichiarazione riportata dal Corriere. Il Rettore Profumo, sempre nel medesimo articolo, replica “È antistorico sostenere che nelle discipline scientifiche non serve l’inglese”.
Queste due divergenti posizioni sono rivelatrici delle opzioni di valore sottostanti rispetto a scelte così delicate. Una ricerca CRUI effettuata nel 2005-2006 – citata da Gianna Fregonara - intanto rivela che nel periodo di riferimento 7 atenei italiani offrivano lauree triennali in inglese ed 11 erano le lauree specialistiche.
Per quanto concerne più da vicino gli studi giuridici – pur non citati dal Corriere – occorre rammentare come la storica facoltà giuridica fiorentina ha istituito ben tre insegnamenti (occorre sottolineare come si tratti di insegnamenti e non di corsi di laurea) interamente in inglese: International Law; Comparative Labour Law; Introduction to the Italian legal culture. Accanto ad essi la medesima facoltà ha previsto insegnamenti parzialmente impartiti in lingua inglese: Comparative Criminal Law e International Business Law.
Sempre la facoltà di giurisprudenza dell’Università di Firenze ha istituito – in forza di un accordo del 2000 con l’Université di Paris I Panthéon Sorbonne – un corso di laurea magistrale in Giurisprudenza italo-francese. Si tratta di uno dei non numerosi esempi di double degree nel settore degli studi giuridici.
Applicando riflessioni svolte per ambiti disciplinari distanti si potrebbe dire che sarebbe antistorico pensare di studiare il diritto internazionale con l’ausilio di fonti nella sola lingua italiana: lo studente scrupoloso deve ricorrere alle fonti normative nella versione originale, presto accorgendosi di come la più parte delle convenzioni non contempli la lingua italiana tra le lingue ufficiali. Analoghe riflessioni potrebbero farsi per la comparazione giuridica e numerosi altri ambiti. Sostenere ciò non implica sostegno incondizionato ad iniziative radicali come quella del Politecnico di Torino, impercorribili nel settore degli studi giuridici per ragioni che sono quanto mai evidenti, ma significa soltanto segnalare che occorrono inziative concrete se si desidera che le nostre università attraggano talenti stranieri e che il livello formativo di tutti gli studenti - specie il livello in uscita - venga innalzato.
Tutto ciò genera qualche timore: che tutta questa enfasi sull'inglese finisca col generare dei nuovi analfabeti di ritorno, quegli stessi che usano l'inglese quasi fosse una variante contemporanea del latinorum dell'Azzeccagarbugli manzoniano: uno strumento per "intorbidare il chiaro".
In conclusione: la speranza di chi scrive è che si apra un dibattito serio, che coniughi l'ineliminabile esigenza di rispettare la nostra lingua madre, troppo spesso vittima di aggressioni, con la necessità di attrarre studenti dal resto d'Europa e del mondo, nonchè di garantire anche agli italiani che decidono di studiare in Italia una formazione di respiro internazionale.
Andrea Falcone

martedì 20 novembre 2007

Anche in Italia l'MBA parla inglese

Un articolo apparso ieri, su "Il Sole 24 ore", pagina 21, a firma di Luigi Dell'Olio, rende nota un'importante novità riguardante l'MBA (Master in Business Administration) dell'Università Bocconi di Milano: d'ora in poi i suoi corsi si svolgeranno esclusivamente in lingua inglese.
Va ricordato come la SDA - Scuola di Direzione Aziendale - ha conquistato nel 2007 il 42° posto nel global MBA ranking, classifica dei primi cento MBA su scala globale visibile sul sito web del Financial Times. Si tratta di un primato tra le italiane in una classifica il cui podio è dominato - nell'ordine - dalle Business Schools delle americane Wharton, Columbia ed Harvard.
Lo scopo di una simile scelta strategica è evidentemente quello di potenziare l'attrattività del master anche verso gli studenti stranieri, ma anche di consentire una formazione di maggiore respiro internazionale per gli studenti italiani, richiedendo di conseguenza requisiti di accesso che contemplano - tra gli altri - la necessità di un elevato punteggio riportato nelle certificazioni TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) e GMAT (Graduate Management Admission Test).
Si tratta di un segnale rivelatore di una tendenza che, vista anche l'autorevolezza del soggetto che ha compiuto una simile scelta, potrà svolgere il ruolo di apripista nel contesto delle università italiane, dove pure qualche passo simile si era già registrato.
Andrea Falcone

lunedì 12 novembre 2007

Materiali per l'apprendimento on-line

Il CELS, il Centro Studi Europei dell'Università di Cambridge ha organizzato l'annuale lezione pubblica in onore di Lord Mackenzie-Stuart (1924-2000), il primo Giudice Britannico alla Corte di Giustizia Europea, della quale in seguito divenne anche Presidente.
La lezione sull'impegnativo tema Human Rights in the 21 Century - quest'anno tenuta da Jack Straw - Lord Chancellor e Secretary of State for Justice - è visibile sul sito della Law faculty, nonchè su quello del CELS, costituendo materiale utile al perfezionamento delle capacità di ascolto e allo sviluppo del lessico tecnico.
Andrea Falcone

giovedì 11 ottobre 2007

Segnali di svolta linguistica in Francia

L’Haut Comitè de Place ha annunciato per voce di Christine Lagarde, attuale ministro francese dell’Economia e delle Finanze dell’esecutivo presieduto da Nicolas Sarkozy, di voler aprire un nuovo settore presso la Borsa di Parigi.
Attraverso la semplificazione delle procedure e l’utilizzo dell’inglese quale lingua di lavoro si spera di attrarre investimenti dall’estero.
Lo si è appreso dal Corriere della sera del 6 ottobre 2007, l’articolo era a firma di Stefano Montefiori. L’autore segnala la svolta quale sintomo di un superamento dello storico “sciovinismo lessicale” francese, lo stesso che predilige ordinateur a computer e télécharger a download. Emblematici i sostantivi del lessico borsistico marché à terme impiegato in luogo dell'inglese future e fonds speculatifs impiegato al posto di hedge funds.
Andrea Falcone

domenica 30 settembre 2007

Il traduttore invisibile

Segnalo un interessante articolo sull'arte del tradurre apparso sull'ultima pagina dell'ultimo numero de "L'Espresso" a firma di Umberto Eco, nella rubrica "La bustina di Minerva", dal titolo "Cappelli alti di forma". Il titolo è stato ispirato da un macroscopico errore di traduzione, rilevato da Eco in una delle sue letture, dal francese haut-de-forme.
"Il traduttore dovrebbe fare il massimo per rendersi invisibile. È solo nei libri mal tradotti che si avverte come nella lingua di arrivo si stabiliscono delle forzature se non delle inverosimiglianze".
L'autore, segnalata la necessità che il traduttore si renda invisibile al lettore, avverte tuttavia quanto prezioso ne sia il ruolo. Un indicatore di importanza è la vittoria segnata dai traduttori nella battaglia con gli editori perchè apparissero anche i loro nomi sull'opera distribuita in traduzione.
Andrea Falcone

martedì 14 agosto 2007

Language and Society

We are all aware how much language is influenced by social changes. Any social change will authomatically produce changes in language either by including new words or giving a new meaning to the old ones.

A clear example are all the new legislations approved to outlaw discrimination on the grounds of religion, sexual orientation and sex-bias.


In the South Africa's Marriage Act the law changed last year following a court ruling which allowed same-sex couples to get married. As a result of that the language to define what it is meant by marriage had to change.

The existing Marriage Act defined a marriage as a "union between a man and a woman" while the new civil union bill describes marriage as a "voluntary union of two persons, which is solemnised and registered by either a marriage or civil union".

sabato 11 agosto 2007

Più lontana Torino o Cambridge?

Intervengo – mi si perdoni per il titolo volutamente provocatorio - per segnalare alcune “anomalie” da me riscontrate.
Correva maggio 2007, tempo prima avevo appreso dal sito dell’Università di Bari- Facoltà di Giurisprudenza, sede di Taranto - dell’esistenza dell’esame ILEC, segnalato sul sito istituzionale dall’aggiornatissima prof.ssa Lombardi. Interessato, ho ben pensato di poter ordinare il testo di preparazione presso una nota libreria – nonché casa editrice – in pieno centro di Bari, con sedi sparse ormai in quasi ogni luogo d’Italia, non appena fossi stato libero.
Ignoravo, tuttavia, quanto possa essere difficile ordinare un testo internazionale, per quanto edito dalla CUP, la celebre e ben distribuita Cambridge University Press e per quanto lo ordinassi in una delle più popolose città universitarie d’Italia.
A seguito di reiterati solleciti, ho dovuto rassegnarmi - dopo vane promesse - ad annullare l’ordine pochi giorni or sono.
Il volenteroso commesso seguitava a ripetere: “Consideri che il testo deve arrivare da Torino (sic!) e che in agosto certe attività sono sospese, dovrà attendere settembre, ma non le garantiamo nulla”. Io pensavo a quante strade ferrate fossero state costruite dall’Unità d’Italia ad oggi e più di un secolo di storia mi si parava dinanzi. Sono perfino giunto ad immaginare la storia romanzata del testo – impolverato - portato dinanzi a me a prezzo di chissà quali rocambolesche avventure transfrontaliere da un ardimentoso corriere a dorso di mulo per strade - questa volta - sterrate (e non ferrate!).
Ma il caso vuole che io sia testardo (anche ad agosto!). Ho tentato allora la strada dell’acquisto on-line, a mezzo carta di credito, tramite il sito della stessa CUP. Immaginavo che la casa editrice fosse comunque (legittimamente) chiusa per ferie come altre consorelle italiane (anche se avvisi non ve ne erano) . Qui la sorpresa. A quanto pare Oltremanica si ha una diversa percezione del tempo: sono occorsi soli cinque giorni ed il testo agognato è giunto a destinazione: confesso, il Regno Unito non mi è mai parso così vicino!
“Cambridge University Press was founded by a royal charter granted to the University of Cambridge by King Henry VIII in 1534. It is the oldest printer and publisher in the world, having been operating continuously since 1584, and is one of the largest academic publishers globally. Its purpose is to further the University's objective of advancing learning, knowledge and research”. Queste le parole con cui la casa editrice presenta se stessa. Una storica ed efficiente casa editrice dell’Università al servizio dell’Università dal 1534. Un esemplare punto di incontro di Università, Ricerca ed Impresa, una storia simile a quella della altrettanto prestigiosa Oxford University Press (1478: First book printed in Oxford), ma senza confronti con alcuna realtà italiana.
Ritengo questo caso rivelatore di come sia difficile un’effettiva integrazione culturale europea, una libera circolazione dei saperi, quando è difficile far circolare gli oggetti che quei saperi incorporano: i libri. Immagino quanto più complicato possa essere ricercare testi specialistici printed in Italy from abroad.
Poi ho trovato una duplice - non completa - consolazione:
  • Harry Potter recemente pubblicato è stato distribuito (anche) in lingua inglese ed è subito entrato nelle top ten (qualcosa si muove!);
  • il testo ILEC mi sembra prima facie davvero un buon testo, anche se un giudizio vero e proprio potrò esprimerlo dopo averlo visionato con maggiore cura.

Andrea Falcone

giovedì 9 agosto 2007

A stimulating place to be

It’s not easy to get in, but people who do get in have great advantages awaiting them, both in terms of the intellectual stimulation that they’ll derive from the subject but also the range of activities outside their academic work made available by the University and colleges”.
Queste le parole di David Feldman, the Chairman of the Faculty of Law in Cambrige nel corso dell’open day 2007 svoltosi presso la Cambridge Law Faculty. Invito a prenderne visione: è tracciato il profilo di un’università molto diversa da quella alla quale siamo abituati. La necessità di competizione ed entusiasmo ricorrono nei discorsi volti a presentare la facoltà.
We have just about everything. We have particular strengths, for example, in international law. What that means is that the teaching here is, and we pride ourselves on this, done by people who are leading experts in their field, who are at the cutting edge of research and practice, as well as of teaching. And the research that we do here informs our teaching, but it also informs legislative development, common law development and the development of international law through our publications and consultative work, through our practice and through the many Courts here and internationally that the members of the Faculty are members of”.
Una autentica dichiarazione di orgoglio: l’orgoglio di appartenere ad una comunità nella quale didattica, ricerca e mondo delle professioni non sono sfere disgiunte, ma rappresentano parte di un virtuous circle. Per noi una finestra per conoscere un diverso sistema legale, un diverso modo di apprendere il diritto e per attingere nuovi stimoli (non sono mai abbastanza!).
Andrea Falcone

mercoledì 8 agosto 2007

CEFR ed ESOL su Wikipedia.

Ho immesso altre due nuove voci su Wikipedia. La prima è stata tradotta dalla definizione inglese, la seconda attingendo le informazioni dai siti di riferimento ESOL.
  • CEFR (Common European Framework of Reference for Languages);
  • ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages).

Ritengo grave che non vi fosse ancora traccia della prima.

La seconda è al "vaglio di enciclopedicità", al pari - del resto - delle altre due voci (ILEC e BEC) già immesse, di cui avevo qui dato notizia. Confido - ad ogni modo- che entreranno a far parte a pieno titolo delle voci enciclopediche, al pari di altre consimili già presenti (PET, FCE, CAE, CPE, per citarne alcune).

L'invito ai più esperti è ad integrarle o rettificarne eventuali imprecisioni.

Andrea Falcone

Scalpore per l'inglese maccheronico di Di Pietro

http://www.corriere.it/openxlink.shtml?http://www.ivanscalfarotto.it/2007/08/non_cazzecca.html Non prendiamocela con chi ci prova ad essere lungimirante, seppure in un inglese non proprio "oxfordiano". Piuttosto dovremmo riflettere sul ruolo che rivestiamo e prepararci alle grandi sfide che il mercato globale ci impone. In ogni modo qualcuno si è preoccupato di trovare la giusta traduzione per l'espressione tanto discussa sul blog di Scalfarotto http://www.cafebabel.com/it/article.asp?T=A&Id=2697

sabato 4 agosto 2007

ILEC e BEC su Wikipedia

Nella speranza che questo possa contribuire a diffondere la conoscenza dell'esame ILEC (International Legal English Certificate) - recente creazione (spring 2006) della University of Cambridge (ESOL) - ho immesso una nuova voce relativa ad esso su Wikipedia, l'enciclopedia libera.
Analogamente ho proceduto per il BEC, acronimo riferito alla trilogia di esami di Business English rilasciati dallo stesso Ente certificatore, certamente più noti, ma la cui voce ho riscontrato essere mancante su Wikipedia, anch'essi esami di sicuro interesse per gli studiosi di diritto, non soltanto per quelli di discipline economico-aziendali.
Riporto di seguito i link, maggiori informazioni e materiali sono tuttavia reperibili su questo blog nella specifica sezione dedicata alle certificazioni di inglese legale.

venerdì 3 agosto 2007

Circolazione dei modelli giuridici. Tra diritto ed economia.

Un articolo a firma di Alessandro Meloncelli, apparso su “Il Sole 24 ore” di lunedì 30 luglio 2007, n. 207, pag. 37 mette in evidenza alcune modifiche intervenute nell’ordinamento cinese. Si scopre che le distanze dagli ordinamenti occidentali si stanno erodendo, anche in tema di proprietà privata. Del resto era già stato segnalato un certo interesse del mondo accademico cinese verso gli studi romanistici. Ne risulta sollecitata la riflessione sui rapporti tra diritto ed economia, non trascurabili per il traduttore come per il tecnico. Parole come intellectual property e copyright paiono essere innalzate a costituire patrimonio giuridico comune di ordinamenti dalle radici e dai riferimenti culturali molto distanziati. Numerosi gli spunti di riflessione sulla globalizzazione del diritto.
Andrea Falcone
_____________________________________________________
Mercati emergenti. L’ordinamento interno stenta a tenere il passo del progresso commerciale. Pechino insegue il diritto. La proprietà privata accende una luce nel buio normativo.
Stimolanti e sorprendenti sono le scoperte che può fare il viaggiatore che raggiunge la Cina. Ma, specie se di formazione sensibilizzata agli aspetti giuridici ed economici, una in particolare è destinata a impressionare enormemente: la dissociazione tra lo sviluppo del sistema commerciale e lo sviluppo dell’ordinamento. Nel nostro contesto occidentale e industrializzato siamo abituati a operare in un sistema in cui qualsiasi iniziativa o attività si svolge secondo fasi regolamentate dal sistema normativo e quindi secondo uno sviluppo prevedibile e certo. Secondo l’orientamento di una certa tradizione giuridica che ha agitato recentemente il dibattito, è lecito pensare addirittura che determinati fenomeni economici possano sviluppare solo successivamente e conseguentemente all’impulso proveniente dalle sollecitazioni normative. In sostanza, la nostra esperienza vuole che vita economica e sistema normativo adeguato convivano e si evolvano parallelamente. In Cina a lungo non è stato così. In questa ultima fase sono state accelerate le riforme di istituti importantissimi in materia societaria e fiscale, ma è prevedibile che il sistema sarà a lungo sottoposto a una faticosa rincorsa dell’impetuoso sviluppo economico. L’esempio più impressionante ci è fornito da quanto avvenuto solo nel marzo scorso, in occasione della riunione plenaria dell’Assemblea Nazionale del Popolo, il Parlamento di Pechino. Oltre al rilancio di una politica del “Go West”, della salvaguardia ambientale e del risparmio energetico, di una riforma fiscale che ha equiparato al 25 per cento la tassazione dei redditi delle imprese straniere a quella prevista per quelle nazionali, è stata introdotta nell’ordinamento cinese la proprietà privata. “La proprietà pubblica, collettiva e individuale sono protette dalla legge e nessuna entità o individuo possono violarla”, recita l’incipit della disposizione. Solo da oggi il cittadino ha il diritto di possedere beni mobili, come quote societarie e titoli quotati in borsa, o immobili (per la verità da tutto ciò è ancora escluso il contadino, per cui la proprietà della terra è ancora statale), materie prime, fattori produttivi, il diritto di detenere aziende, quello di iscrivere ipoteche e quello di ricevere eredità. Ciò che colpisce è lo sviluppo immobiliare di Shangai, stimato nel corso del 2006 pari a un piano di building ogni venti minuti, che la borsa stessa della città, abbia superato in valori capitalizzati quella della vicina Hong Kong, che l’impresa manifatturiera presente sia la più efficiente della storia dell’uomo, che tutto questo si sia sviluppato sino ad oggi senza che l’ordinamento prevedesse l’istituto della proprietà privata. Ciò è potuto accadere, evidentemente, grazie a un sistema che ha operato in zone grigie dell’ordinamento, attraverso interposizioni fittizie, corruzione e tolleranze. In realtà nella Costituzione cinese il principio astratto della proprietà privata era stato introdotto già nel 2004. Ciò che è avvenuto nel marzo scorso è stata l’introduzione nel codice civile della proprietà privata tra i diritti inviolabili dell’individuo, equiparata alla proprietà pubblica. Il nuovo istituto avrà la sua efficacia solo attraverso l’introduzione di un regolamentato sistema di tutele. La dimostrazione della discrasia tra ordinamento giuridico e sistema commerciale ci è ulteriormente fornita dalle vicende della legge sulla tutela della proprietà intellettuale e del copyright. Le disposizioni, perfettamente allineate a quelle previste in qualsiasi altro Paese occidentale, prevedono che la registrazione avvenga presso il Trademark Office di Pechino a un costo di circa 3.000 euro e un lasso di tempo necessario di circa un anno e mezzo, oppure direttamente in Italia, richiedendo all’ufficio designato dalla Convenzione di Madrid che la Cina venga inserita nella lista di Paesi in cui il proprio marchio è protetto. Tale procedura è stata resa possibile solo in conseguenza degli impegni legati alla adesione della Cina al Wto. Ancora una volta, quindi, la tutela della proprietà intellettuale ha paradossalmente preceduto quella della proprietà privata.
Alessandro Meloncelli

giovedì 2 agosto 2007

Diritto pubblico anglo-americano.

Mi permetto di segnalare due brevi testi editi dalla società editrice il Mulino, facenti parte della collana “Si governano così”. “Una piccola enciclopedia per conoscere le istituzioni politiche di altri Paesi, per comprendere come sono organizzati e come proteggono i diritti, per coglierne, attraverso la vicenda costituzionale, la storia e la cultura civica”, questi i dichiarati ambiziosi propositi della collana. I testi in questione hanno per titolo “Regno Unito” e “USA”. Sono due lavori brevi che combinano la maggiore possibile concisione con la correttezza dell’esposizione, assicurata – del resto – dalla competenza tecnica dei due autori. Del primo lavoro sul Regno Unito, autore è Alessandro Torre, il quale insegna di Diritto pubblico anglo-americano presso l’Università degli studi di Bari, del secondo sugli USA, Luca Stroppiana, cultore di Istituzioni di diritto pubblico e Diritto pubblico comparato all’Università di Firenze. Uno strumento utile per chiunque desideri avere un quadro d’insieme delle due realtà ordinamentali.

  • Regno Unito, di Alessandro Torre, ed. il Mulino;
  • USA, di Luca Stroppiana, ed. il Mulino.

Andrea Falcone

sabato 28 luglio 2007

Lingue straniere tra le novità del "Ddl Mastella"

Tra le novità dell'ormai "legge Mastella" (per quanto non ancora pubblicata in G.U.) di riforma dell'ordinamento giudiziario si segnala la rivisitazione delle materie d'esame per il concorso di accesso alla magistratura. Occorrerà anche la conoscenza di una lingua straniera e dell'informatica giuridica. Questo di certo comporterà la necessità di un ulteriore rilancio delle lingue (inglese, francese, tedesco e spagnolo sono le possibili alternative opzioni del candidato) nell'apprendimento universitario. Facile immaginare che la diffusione delle lingue verrà sempre più associata alle copiose iniziative formative - anche organizzate da enti privati - volte alla formazione degli aspiranti magistrati ordinari. Un'occasione in più per meditare sulle modalità con cui impartire gli insegnamenti linguistici, finalizzandoli all'espletamento della tanto delicata funzione giudiziaria, sia essa giudicante o requirente. Andrea Falcone.

venerdì 27 luglio 2007

Legislazione Europea

How the European Commission drafts legislation in 20 languages
Un interessante articolo curato da William Robinson, Coordinatore del Legal Revisers Group dei servizi legali della commissione Europea.

L'articolo ci illustra i diversi stadi che attraversa la produzione della legislazione europea quando viene tradotta nelle 20 lingue ufficiali. Affronta la complessità del processo di traduzione e cita le linee guida a disposizione per aiutare gli specialisti a produrre testi in grado di comunicare la legge. MLombardi

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The European Community (EC) legislative process Under the EC Treaty as amended over the years most basic Community legislation is adopted jointly by the European Parliament, directly elected by EU citizens, and the Council, representing the governments of the Member States, with only a few fields such as taxation, agriculture, and fisheries being reserved to the Council alone. But in almost all cases the proposal for legislation—the first draft of the measures—must come from the Commission, and without such a proposal the other institutions cannot act. Also under the EC Treaty, most of the detailed rules to give practical effect to the basic legislation are to be adopted by the Commission, which must generally act with the approval of a committee composed of representatives of the Member States. The EU has 20 official languages Article 290 of the EC Treaty states: The rules governing the languages of the institutions of the Community shall … be determined by the Council, acting unanimously. Those rules were laid down by Regulation No 11, as amended by successive Acts of Accession, under Article 1 of which: The official languages and the working languages of the institutions of the Union shall be Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Maltese, Polish, Portuguese, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish and Swedish. Article 4 provides “Regulations and other documents of general application shall be drafted in the twenty official languages”, thus indicating that there is not simply one original language version and 19 translations. Under Article 5, the Official Journal of the European Union must be published in all 20 languages. Exceptionally, because of difficulties regarding translation into Maltese, Regulation (EC) No 930/ 2004 lays down that, for a limited period, acts need not be drafted and published in Maltese. Irish is not an official language under Regulation No 1, but the Treaties themselves are authentic in Irish. Although all 20 official languages are the working languages of the institutions according to Regulation No 1, the institutions’ day-to-day work can hardly be carried on in all of them simultaneously. Different institutions have chosen different practical solutions, a number of which have faced legal or political challenges. Some institutions have opted for a single internal working language: French for the European Court of Justice, English for the European Central Bank, for example. The European Commission has a policy of using three languages for internal purposes: English, French and German. In practice, French and English are the main languages of internal communication and drafting. Formerly French enjoyed a clear predominance but in recent years the balance has shifted and now within the Commission most drafting is done in English. How the Commission drafts legislation Step 1—First draft written by technical experts Legislation is drafted by the technical department for the sector concerned, not by a corps of drafting specialists. The first drafts are generally written not by lawyers but by technical experts such as economists or scientists: veterinarians draft animal health rules and so on. Until recently, new arrivals were not even given much in-house training in drafting and would have to depend on their own experience and national background and the experience of colleagues. Drafters must write in either English or French and their choice is determined by the language used in their department. So most write in a foreign language, and it is harder for them to write exactly what they want to say or to express their ideas in the clearest possible way. One result is a tendency for drafters to follow precedents. It is much easier for non-native speakers of a language to stick to provisions or phrases that have been used in earlier legislation. Non-lawyers gain some comfort from the fact that provisions or phrases have been used before and therefore—they assume—cannot be wrong. Adherence to precedents drawn from past legislation is all the more tempting since they exist in all the languages. All those dealing with the new draft in English or French will be able to find out what it will look like in their own languages. Translation will probably take less time and present fewer problems because the translators can rely in part on the old text. Unfortunately the precedents chosen may not be best suited to the new circumstances. Because the drafters are not lawyers, they may not always analyse sufficiently the circumstances they are dealing with and those dealt with by the precedent. And because they have to work in a foreign language, they are not in a position to judge the linguistic quality of the precedent they have chosen. Moreover, drafting standards have evolved and over-reliance on precedents tends to perpetuate past faults and weaknesses. Step 2—Consultation within the Commission Once the technical department has prepared its preliminary draft, it is submitted to the other Commission departments concerned as part of the internal consultation procedure. The Commission’s Legal Service has to be consulted on all draft legislation. Lawyers specialising in the sector concerned will examine the draft for compliance with the law and coherence with other legislation in the field. The Commission’s legal revisers, who all have dual legal and language qualifications, will examine it for compliance with the rules on form and presentation of legislation, in particular the Joint Practical Guide of the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission for persons involved in the drafting of legislation within the Community institutions 2. At this comparatively early stage when the draft exists in only one language, far-reaching changes can be suggested if the legal revisers believe them necessary. Unfortunately the strict, short deadlines under the internal rules and the volume of work prevent the revisers from always achieving the standard they would like. The formal Legal Service response is drawn up by the lawyer for the sector concerned and generally—but not always—incorporates all the legal revisers’ suggestions. The lawyer will sometimes drop some of the legal revisers’ suggestions in deference to the wishes of the originating department. If the originating department chooses, it may also consult a team of editors in the Translation Directorate-General who will suggest linguistic improvements. After those consultations it is up to the originating department to take account of the comments received. Generally the Legal Service’s suggestions must be followed although it does not have the power to block a text altogether. Step 3—Translation into the other official languages The text must then be translated into all the official languages by the Translation Directorate-General, before formal adoption by the Commission. Sometimes the originating department has already begun the translation process before receiving the Legal Service’s suggestions. It may then be reluctant to accept any drafting changes because of the difficulty of having the changes made in all the other language versions by the Translation Directorate-General, or else it may have the changes made by members of its staff who are not trained translators: a hazardous course. The legal revisers may have another opportunity to revise the text at this stage. Revision may be requested by the originating department, often at the instigation of the Legal Service or of the Commission’s Secretariat-General, which has general responsibility for ensuring that procedures are properly followed. Since the text has passed through extensive consultations, is often the fruit of difficult compromises, has been translated into all the official languages and is to be adopted in a matter of days, the revisers must confine themselves to correcting formal or terminological errors and ensuring that the legal scope is exactly the same in the different language versions. What happens when the Commission has adopted a legislative proposal? The Commission’s proposal is submitted to the European Parliament and the Council, where it passes through those institutions’ internal preadoption procedures. In the European Parliament it is considered by a committee of Members of the European Parliament, which submits a report to the plenary. In the Council it is considered by working groups consisting of experts from the Member States. Each institution has its own team of legal revisers who will also ensure that the drafting rules are complied with. At the more advanced stages of the procedure, however, it is harder to propose restructuring or rewriting for the sake of clarity and the revisers’ primary responsibility is to correct mistakes and ensure that the various language versions correspond exactly. Particular features of EU law Multilingualism A unique feature of EU legislation is that it exists in 20 language versions, each of which has equal force. This fact and the multilingual drafting process are the source of certain complications. The handicap of having to work in a foreign language weighs heavily on the authors of the first drafts but it affects the subsequent stages of the procedure too. Most of those involved in discussions on that draft will also be working in a foreign language and will have extra difficulty, first in understanding what is in the draft, and then in explaining how they want it altered. The resulting text must then be translated, which creates scope for misunderstanding, especially if the original text is not clear. The text will also undergo various word processing manipulations as it passes from one department to another. At all these stages mistakes can creep into the various versions. In a monolingual system, there is less scope for linguistic errors in the first place, and most errors that do slip in will tend to be corrected by those involved at later stages, right up to the level of the minister who signs the final text. In a multilingual system, few of those involved at later stages will actually be native speakers of the language version concerned and so such spontaneous correction is less likely. It may happen that a term used in one language leads to a misunderstanding in another. In Regulation (EC) No 141/20003, the term “orphan drug” is used in a technical sense (known to the trade circles) of a drug which is used to treat a rare disease and for which the manufacturer receives special tax credits and marketing rights as an incentive to develop the drug. However, a German expert has assured me that she has seen it translated as “medicine for children without parents”! In the Koschniske case , the Court of Justice was asked whether “diens echtgenote” (Dutch: “whose wife”) in a provision of a regulation on social security could also be understood to mean a married man. The Court held that it could, by interpreting it in the light of all the other language versions, which used a word such as spouse to cover both sexes, as well as the purpose of the provision and the principle of equal treatment. In June 2004 a Directive on jams, jellies and marmalades had to be amended because the German version had used the terms “Konfitüre” and “Marmelade” for “jam” and “marmalade” respectively, while in certain local markets in Austria and Germany the term “Marmelade” is traditionally used for “jam” and the term “Marmelade aus Zitrusfrüchten” is used for “marmalade”. A recent example of the pitfalls of the system was the native-English-speaking author who refused to accept the revisers’ correction of “ton” to “tonne”. He said that “tonne” had been in all the documents submitted to him but he had checked in an English dictionary and the correct spelling in English was “ton”. He was clearly unaware that a tonne or metric ton is 1 000kg while a British ton is 2 240lb (1.016 tonnes). To ensure that the legal effects of an act are identical in all languages the various language versions must, as far as possible, have the same form. It is not permissible to adopt a solution to a drafting problem that works only in one language. For example alphabetical order cannot normally be used because items would appear in a quite different order in most languages. During the drafting of the Constitution one thorny problem was the names for the various components of the Court of Justice. Some languages, such as French, have two words (“cour” and “tribunal”) which on their own convey a hierarchy which could not be reflected by two words in some other languages, including English. Moreover, in some languages two words similar to the French words exist but the hierarchical order is not clear. The solution finally adopted was to call the lower body “general court” or the equivalent except in languages where single words were enough to convey the hierarchical relationship. Multilingualism is not just a complicating factor. It brings benefits too: the original text is subjected to a particularly close scrutiny as all the translators and revisers consider how the meaning should be rendered in their own languages. Mistakes or lack of clarity or consistency in the original are often brought to light by the translation process and corrected. Multiculturalism EU legislation becomes more complex because it has to deal with many different cultures and divergent local conditions. The animal health rules contain many examples. The rules on ear tags on bovine animals had to take account of the particular cases of bullfights in some Mediterranean countries and the custom in some Nordic countries of displaying animals in traditional rural settings, in farm museums for example. When pet passports were introduced to make it easier for citizens to travel with their pet animals, they catered not just for cats and dogs, which are common pets throughout Europe, but also for ferrets, much to the bemusement of countries with no ferreting tradition. During a case at the Court of Justice in which the French word “chasseurs” had to be translated into English, the translator pointed out that in England hunting would conjure up images of red-coated horse riders in pursuit of inedible foxes whereas in France hunters are often local farmers and workers out with a gun and a dog shooting birds for the pot. Taking account of multiculturalism is a dynamic process since local conditions are evolving at different speeds in different countries. Even areas where there was once a large degree of uniformity across the Member States may become more complex. For example, marriage has generally been regarded as an institution with common core features across the EU. Since the introduction of same-sex marriages in the Netherlands, however, some people there find it is no longer enough to say they are married but feel it necessary to specify the sex of their partner. Negotiated law The first drafts of legislation are not of the highest quality and the text becomes even heavier through the cumbersome process of multilingual committees whose members are making textual suggestions in one language but “thinking” in another, whether their native language or one in which they formerly worked. At a very early stage the draft becomes the expression of the policy and many subsequent attempts to influence the policy consist of textual suggestions by bodies largely made up of non-native speakers of the drafting language. Changes are made with a view to achieving policy ends rather than producing clear, simple and precise legislation. It sometimes happens that a provision is deliberately left vague (known in French as flou artistique) to paper over a failure to reach full agreement. This is a situation addressed by the Joint Practical Guide in point 1.3: Provisions that are not clear may be interpreted restrictively by the Community courts. If that happens, the result will be just the opposite of what was intended by the incorporation into the text of grey areas intended to resolve problems in negotiating the provision. The Joint Practical Guide cites the example of the Pro- Sieben case in which the Court concurred with the conclusion of Advocate General Jacobs, after having applied all the available methods of interpretation, that two opposing interpretations were possible. AG Jacobs stated (at Point 53): in the present case, … the provision in question appears to be, in the light of the arguments advanced on both sides, not only equally open to two conflicting interpretations, but perhaps deliberately ambiguous. An ambiguity—and particularly a deliberate ambiguity—cannot be invoked to restrict a fundamental freedom. Lack of continuity in the drafting process The European drafting process differs from many national systems in that there is not a single department with responsibility for total quality. Texts are largely drafted by committee with the familiar danger that all contribute but no one single person assumes full responsibility. The danger exists within the Commission itself because so many different departments, each with different priorities, are involved in the drafting process. In 2001 an attempt was made to tackle part of the problem by adopting guidance on the responsibilities of those involved in the drafting process within the Commission. The danger is aggravated by the fact that for all basic legislation, the texts produced by the Commission pass to the European Parliament and the Council, where they may be substantially changed by committees and working parties before adoption. Steps taken to improve drafting? As long ago as 1992 the European Council adopted the Birmingham Declaration including the strong message: “We want Community legislation to be clearer and simpler”. At the Amsterdam Intergovernmental Conference in 1997 the heads of State and of government adopted Declaration 39 calling on the Community institutions to adopt common guidelines for improving the drafting of Community legislation and to take “the internal organisational measures they deem necessary to ensure that these guidelines are properly applied”8. On 22 December 1998 the institutions adopted an Interinstitutional Agreement setting out 22 guidelines for drafting, based in large part on suggestions from the Member States. The first guidelines include general principles familiar to all drafters:

  • draft in clear, simple and precise terms;
  • think of the addressees;
  • keep sentences and provisions short;
  • use plain language; be consistent both within one act and between acts in the same field. That agreement also listed the internal measures to be taken. The very first was to produce, in March 2000, the Joint Practical Guide for persons involved in the drafting of legislation. That guide was translated into all the official languages and distributed within the institutions. In 2003 it was published and put on the EU’s website for legislation, EUR-LEX10. The guide is quite short with less than 100 pages, laid out in accessible form and illustrated by models and examples of good and bad drafting. It is designed to help all those involved in the legislative process, those writing the first draft, those commenting on drafts, the translators of the various language versions and those negotiating the final text. Secondly the institutions undertook to enable their legal services and in particular their legal revisers to make drafting suggestions earlier in the process. The Commission’s legal revisers now have the opportunity to revise all draft legislation as soon as the originating department submits it to the other Commission departments for approval, and they handle some 2000 drafts a year. The institutions also committed themselves to providing drafting training to their staff. Since 2001 the Commission’s legal revisers have been offering basic legislative drafting courses, which have been attended by some 400 staff. A computer programme has been introduced to standardise the presentation and formatting of legislation and to steer drafters in the right direction. Contacts have been established with the Member States to exchange views on drafting and ways to improve legislation. The legal revisers of the three institutions sometimes liaise with each other to harmonise their practices and agree on common solutions to problems. At the end of 2003, the institutions adopted a new Interinstitutional Agreement11 reaffirming their commitment to the full application of the 1998 Agreement and to “ensure that legislation is of good quality, namely that it is clear, simple and effective” (point 25). As part of efforts to make European legislation more accessible, the institutions have also adopted agreements on codification and recasting12. Other possible steps In 1995 an influential report on the quality of Community legislation was produced by a committee of senior Dutch civil servants chaired by a former judge at the Court of Justice, Judge Koopmans. One of its suggestions, endorsed by other commentators, was an independent body to review acts at the stage of the Commission’s proposal or just before they become law, on the model of the French Conseil d’état or similar bodies in some Member States. At the end of 2003 the United Kingdom Foreign and Commonwealth Office presented a report examining the drafting of EU legislation and identifying problems relating to the application and interpretation of EU legislation in Member States. It suggested an EU Legislative Drafting Office, perhaps modelled on the UK Parliamentary Counsel Office, independent of present institutions, with responsibility for draft legislation throughout the legislative process. In January 2004 the four countries holding the rotating presidency of the European Council in 2004 and 2005 (the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Ireland and Luxembourg) launched a Joint Initiative on Regulatory Reform to maintain the momentum in implementing the Commission’s Action Plan on simplifying and improving the regulatory environment. Other Member States have since backed the initiative. The standards by which EU legislation has to be judged At a Colloquium of the Association of the Councils of State and Supreme administrative jurisdictions of the European Union in The Hague in June 2004, it was suggested that EU legislation should be judged by different standards from national legislation. The President of the Association, Mr. H. Tjeenk Willink, Vice-President of the Dutch Council of State said: The European legal order was devised to serve diversity and pluralism and the EU’s legislators must take this into account. There were some law introduced in the name of the free market which made it mandatory for all cafés in Europe to meet the same requirements, it might denote a success for that free market but it would spell failure for the concept of Europe. Of Europe as a cultural and social reality. “European legislation is not intended to take away the diversity of legal traditions, methods and systems in the Member States, but rather to shape their compatibility”. This means that the EU’s legislators do not necessarily play the same role as national ones. While national legislators focus primarily on how to find uniform solutions to what are experienced as common problems, European legislation must define the scope for diverse solutions. National legislators will often indicate what must be done while EU legislators will indicate what must be stopped. Is it possible then that the lack of clarity and lack of precision resulting from the process by which EU legislation is adopted are not just unfortunate side effects of that process but are actually essential to enable the system to work by giving the Member States the leeway they need to adapt it to their own legal systems? Perhaps in EU law the point of balance between fuzzy and fussy legislation is different from that in national systems. Whatever the answer, the acknowledged need for some leeway or “wriggle room” cannot be treated as licence to be sloppy. Communicating the law G.C. Thornton has written that the legislative draftsman’s “task is not only to determine the law, but also to communicate it”. At the 1990 Commonwealth Law Conference, he suggested: Communication depends on an overlap of the linguistic experience of the sender and receiver of the message. There must be a shared context of both linguistic experience and social experience if ambiguities and other comprehension problems are to be avoided or resolved. For European legislation, identifying a shared context presents particular problems. While there is perhaps some overlap of linguistic experience at the level of the government representatives who negotiate the texts, there is less overlap at the level of the lawyers and civil servants in the Member States, and still less in the case of the ordinary citizen. A shared context of social experience must be viewed in relative terms. While a person at one geographical extreme of the Community may perceive considerable cultural differences between his or her social context and that of the other geographical extremes, those differences might appear quite small to a person viewing the situation from the other side of the world. Perhaps we Europeans are too conscious of our differences and not enough aware of the increasing amount that we have in common. Language In view of the trends in language knowledge and teaching in Europe, more of the institutions’ dayto- day work will probably be done in English. The problem of authors or negotiators thinking in French (because they have been doing so for many years) but drafting in English will tend to diminish. At the same time, and partly as a result of that change, the general standard of English amongst its staff will probably improve. This does not mean that EU English will come to use only words in common use in the British Isles and that those words will have the same meaning. Indeed the Court of Justice has held that it is unsafe to assume that words used in EU law have the same meaning as in national law. In fact EU English is an international medium of communication divorced from any one national culture. Is it possible that, in the same way as EU legislation has to be judged by different standards from national legislation, EU English cannot be judged by domestic standards in the British Isles? It is perhaps indicative that a booklet published in English by the EU institutions advising authors how to draft in order to make sure translation is easier and more faithful was based on a Swedish document which in turn was a translation and adaptation of a Finnish guide produced for Finnish domestic purposes. This “internationalisation” of English is part of a wider trend, not just confined to the EU. In England itself, Leeds Metropolitan University is “launching a new MA in Teaching English as an International Language in September 2005 which will be staffed by a team of mainly non-native speaker lecturers”. Euro-speak On 2 September 2004 The Economist published a lighthearted article in its Charlemagne column entitled “Decoding a Euro-diplomat takes more than a dictionary”. It looked at some of the language problems in the institutions and concluded: But ever-inventive Brussels is coming up with a solution of sorts through the emergence of “Euro-speak”—a form of dead, bureaucratic English. The joy of phrases like “qualified majority voting”, “the community method” and “the commission’s sole right of initiative” is that they are completely meaningless to all ordinary Europeans—whether in translation or in the original. But, crucially, they are crystal-clear to insiders. The idea of Euro-speak dictionaries explaining to outsiders what EU insiders are talking about is one to be taken seriously20. There are precedents. Back in 1886 a guide to Indian English words called Hobson-Jobson was published by Yule and Burrell to explain new words such as “curry” and “juggernaut” that we now accept without question in everyday English. A dictionary explaining the Euro-English expressions listed by The Economist but also many more such as “transposition” (the way European directives are made part of national law) and “Comitology” (the system of committees of Member States’ representatives overseeing the Commission’s exercise of the powers delegated to it) would certainly help the “outsiders” now, even if it might seem quaint in years to come. A critical approach to the quality of language and legislation in the EU is healthy. But critics should ensure that they know what they are talking about before they sound off. In 2004, BBC journalist John Humphrys published a book entitled Lost for Words: The Meaning and Manipulation of the English Language, in which he blamed institutions like the EU for the decline in standards of English. He complained of the use of such words as “pertannually” in the draft European Constitution and the fact that when concerns were raised, the word was replaced with “insubdurience”, an assertion picked up by various reviewers. In fact those words did not exist. According to Private Eye magazine, Humphrys had simply been taken in by a spoof by Simon Hoggart published in the Guardian newspaper in June 2004. What more could be done? The departments and staff of the institutions must be made aware that even if imprecision, diplomatic vagueness, linguistic slips and awkwardness are inevitable and tolerable in their day-to-day communications, much higher standards must apply to the drafting of legislation. Moreover, while numerous routine management laws may continue to be drafted by a production line process, special procedures may be needed for drafting fundamental laws. Those could be entrusted to specialist drafters who should be allowed the extra time and resources necessary to produce a quality product. The Commission’s technical departments, which under the present internal rules are responsible for the quality of the first drafts, should each set up their own drafting units (as called for in the 1998 Interinstitutional Agreement) to meet that responsibility, facilitate all the work on the text downstream, and pave the way for a better final product. More generally, all departments and staff of the institutions should recognise the crucial importance of effective communication and take language skills more seriously, especially in the main internal working languages, English and French. All staff concerned should be offered advanced training in those languages. Greater emphasis should be placed on drafting as a specialist skill and all drafters should be offered reinforced back-up, both by human drafting specialists and by computer systems. The author: William Robinson has for many years worked in the field of European law and language, He started his career in Luxembourg as a legal translator at the European Court of Justice before moving to Munich as a translator, reviser and editor for the European Patent Office. He then returned to the Court of Justice where he revised translations of its judgments and produced guidance for English translation. Since 1996 he has been a legal reviser in the European Commission’s Legal Service in Brussels revising draft legislation and working on guidance and training for drafters.

giovedì 26 luglio 2007

I tecnici del diritto e le sfide della contemporaneità.

Propongo di seguito l’intervento integrale dell’avvocato Franzo Grande Stevens pubblicato su “Il Sole 24 ore” di martedì 24 luglio 2007 – n.201, pag. 31. Un interessante quadro delle sfide che la contemporaneità impone all’avvocato, l’inglese è ovviamente parte integrante di quanto necessario per vincerle, anche secondo il noto tecnico del diritto di cui si riporta il contributo. Interessanti spunti sulla professione forense in Italia e negli altri Paesi economicamente avanzati. L’articolo si conclude con una argomentata perorazione a favore dei “peculiari” pregi dei professionisti nostrani, senza omettere la necessità di interventi sulla formazione degli stessi. Andrea Falcone.
INTERVENTO Oggi serve più preparazione Di Franzo Grande Stevens Un avvocato è, più degli altri, figlio del suo tempo, anzitutto consapevole che l’economia precorre il diritto. Ed essa è mutata profondamente: il nostro Codice Civile del ’42 considerava prevalente un’economia fondata sulla proprietà e gli altri diritti reali. La ricchezza era soprattutto quella della rendita fondiaria, urbana od agraria. Con la Costituzione del ’48 si adottò il sistema dell’economia di mercato: la ricchezza veniva dagli operatori economici ai quali si assicurava il diritto e il dovere di leale concorrenza. Successivamente, gli operatori economici – le imprese – assunsero dimensioni sempre più transazionali: venne il Trattato Cee, oggi Unione Europea, con regole uniformi per assicurare, fra l’altro, uguaglianza di diritti ai cittadini dei Paesi membri e l’attuazione del “libero mercato” che – non sembri un paradosso – tanto più è libero quanto più è regolato e vigilato. In questi ultimi anni il mutamento è giunto all’estremo: col mercato planetario sono cadute le barriere nel campo finanziario e della comunicazione. Si opera in qualsiasi parte del globo. Anche se manca – né vi può essere – un’Autorità sopranazionale che detti regole. Quali allora le conseguenze per un avvocato privatista, ma anche di altre branche (penale o amministrativa)? A me pare che i cambiamenti riguardino principalmente la preparazione tecnico-culturale dell’avvocato e la sua organizzazione di lavoro. È indispensabile ormai conoscere il diritto comparato e comunitario: non bastano più i nostri istituti nazionali. Bisogna conoscere anche gli altri sistemi giuridici e possedere nozioni interdisciplinari nei campi dell’economia e della finanza. E bisogna conoscere gli orientamenti giurisprudenziali almeno dei Paesi economicamente più importanti anche se diversi per mentalità, tradizione, cultura. Occorre inoltre conoscere una lingua veicolare che di questi tempi è l’inglese. Lingua con la quale i modelli giuridici corrispondenti a quelli economici circolano nel mondo. Insomma occorre un bagaglio tecnico e culturale oggi molto più ampio: indispensabile per consigliare ed assistere un cliente in un determinato rapporto internazionale, quale che sia il suo valore economico, o in un rapporto domestico: quando si tratti di operazione economico-finanziaria con caratteri peculiari nati, applicati e giudicati in altri Paesi. Quanto al dato organizzativo, oltre alla dotazione “informatica” credo non si possa fare a meno di lavorare in equipe. Oggi un operatore economico chiede all’avvocato un responso attendibile e rapido perché i tempi dei traffici sono sempre più accelerati ed egli non può perdere punti in favore di un suo concorrente. Per soddisfare queste esigenze occorrono quindi più avvocati abituati a lavorare insieme a livello differente di esperienza: la loro opera è inevitabilmente collettiva e, per lo più, di carattere stragiudiziale. Così sono organizzati gli studi legali dei Paesi ad economia avanzata che hanno propaggini anche in Italia con cui noi avvocati italiani inevitabilmente dobbiamo confrontarci. Tuttavia, noi avvocati italiani, abbiamo caratteristiche peculiari che ci consentono di offrire un “valore aggiunto”: quello che induce i grandi studi internazionali a fare ricorso a noi nei casi più difficili. Due, le nostre caratteristiche. Primo: un avvocato italiano, in genere, svolge anche lavoro “giudiziale”: la nostra vera “palestra” intellettuale, che ci costringe a studiare e ad aggiornarci, scrivere dialetticamente, superare un’obbiezione non prevista. Un avvocato (Fulvio Croce distingueva tra chi “è un avvocato e chi lo fa”) non si limita ad un lavoro di forbice o di “routine” ma è abituato a intravedere i pericoli e le eccezioni future; il suo è sempre un lavoro con caratteri di originalità. Secondo: un avvocato italiano in genere ha la dote della “fantasia”. L’esperienza ci ha insegnato che, più di una volta, in una situazione apparentemente senza soluzioni, un avvocato italiano supera con un’idea brillante un’impasse, scioglie un nodo ritenuto inestricabile. Sono osservazioni di un “pratico” che sottolinea la necessità di una formazione scolastica ben diversa dall’attuale. Il rischio è lo scisma foscoliano: “pratici che operano senza pensare e teorici che pensano senza operare”.

mercoledì 25 luglio 2007

Traduzione Giuridica_ Ayfer Altay

Difficulties Encountered in the Translation of Legal Texts: The Case of Turkey by Dr. Ayfer Altay
Introduction

The problems encountered in translating legal texts, which are categorised below, are specific to legal translation between the English and Turkish languages and legal systems. These problems are mostly encountered by students learning legal translation, in our case those at the department of Translation and Interpretation at Hacettepe University in Turkey.

While lawyers cannot expect translators to produce parallel texts that are identical in meaning, they do expect them to produce parallel texts that are identical in their legal effect.

The problems will be studied under six main categories, which are likely to be quite broad. Such a study could have been applied to the limited examples from a limited source or from a certain area of law. Alternatively one of the categories could have been taken as the point of concentration and the idea could have been developed further. However, I have tried to put forward the major sources of errors and problems due to the differences in legal systems and languages. These categories have arisen from my twelve years of personal experience as an instructor of translation of legal texts. The article will discuss mainly syntactic arrangements. Arguments on semantic and pragmatic models concerning phraseology and textology in doctrines in international law or comments on parallel textuality in legal matters and on legal authenticity will not be provided for the time being, since they would broaden the subject excessively.

Before studying the problems and difficulties of translating legal texts, first we shall describe the historical and linguistic backgrounds which made both Turkish and English legal languages become what they are today, because the difficulties arise mainly due to the differences in linguistic systems and languages. Therefore, we shall start with The Bases of the English Legal Language (although these may be well-known to the British reader). Then, The Bases of the Turkish Legal System and The Nature of the Turkish Legal Language will be discussed briefly. Before studying the problems and difficulties of legal translation, the general features of legal language, and the common features of the English and Turkish legal languages will be discussed very briefly.

Bases of the English Legal Language

It is impossible to fully appreciate the nature of legal language without having some familiarity with its history. There is no single answer to the question of how legal language came to be what it is (Tiersma 1999:47). Since much of the explanation can be found in the historical events which have left their mark on the language of English law, we should first take a glance at the historical background of today's British legal language. Like their language, the law of the British Celts had little lasting impact on the English legal system. The Germanic invaders who spoke Anglo-Saxon or Old English developed a type of legal language, the remnants of which have survived until today, such as "bequeath," "theft," "guilt," "land." The Anglo-Saxons made extensive use of alliteration in their legal language, which survived in today's English legal language in expressions such as "aid and abet," "any and all," etc. Even without alliteration, parallelism was an important stylistic feature of Anglo-Saxon legal documents, which has also survived. Even today witnesses swear to tell "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth" (Tiersma 1999:15). A significant event for the language and law of England was the spread of Christianity in 597, since it promoted writing in Latin. Through the Roman Catholic Church the Latin language once again had a major presence in England. Its influence extended to legal matters, particularly by means of the Canon Law, through which the Church regulated religious matters such as marriage and family. The use of Latin as legal language introduced terms like "client," "admit," and "mediate" (Tiersma 1999:16). After the Duke of Normandy claimed the English throne and invaded England in 1066, the main impact of this Norman conquest on the written legal language was to replace English with Latin (Tiersma 1999:20). Beginning in 1310, the language of statutes was French, but it was not until two hundred years after the Conquest that French became the language of oral pleadings in the royal courts. For the next one or two centuries French maintained its status as England's premier legal language. However, in 1417, while fighting the French, King Henry V broke all linguistic ties with his Norman ancestry and decided to have many of his official documents written in English (Tiersma 1999:23). Despite the emergence of French, Latin remained an important legal language in England, especially in its written form. The fact that writs were drafted in Latin for so long explains why even today, many of them have Latin names. The use of Latin and tireless repetitions by the judges have endowed these legal maxims with a sense of timelessness and dignity; moreover, they reflect an oral folk tradition in which legal rules are expressed as sayings due to the ease of remembering a certain rhythm or rhyme (Tiersma 1999:26). These poetic features are still occasionally found in the English legal language. Latin has also remained in expressions relating to the names of cases and parties; for example, in England the term for the crown in criminal case names is "Rex or Regina" (Tiersma 1999:27). When Anglo-French died out as a living language, the French used by lawyers and judges became a language exclusive to the legal profession (Tiersma 1999:28). It was incomprehensible both to their clients and to the speakers of ordinary French. Legal French also contained many terms for which there were no English equivalents. Several French terms are still common in legal English such as "accounts payable/receivable," "attorney general," "court martial." The most lasting impact of French is the tremendous amount of technical vocabulary that derives from it, including many basic words in the English legal system, such as "agreement," "arrest," "estate," "fee simple," "bailiff," "council," "plaintiff," and "plea." As in the early Anglo-Saxon influence, which had phrases featuring the juxtaposition of two words with closely related meaning which are often alliterative such as "to have and to hold," this doubling continued in legal French, often involving a native English word together with the equivalent French word, since many people at the time would have been partially bilingual and would understand at least one of the terms, for example, "acknowledge and confess," "had and received," "will and testament," "fit and proper." As we see through the Middle ages, the legal profession made use of three different languages. During the rest of 17th century, Latin and legal French continued their slow decline. In 1731, Parliament permanently ended the use of Latin and French in legal proceedings; however, it became difficult to translate many French and Latin terms into English. With another statute, it was provided that the traditional names of writs and technical words would continue to be in the original language (Tiersma 1999:36), and the ritualistic language remained important. The exact words of legal authorities mattered very much to the profession. Rewriting an authoritative text in your own words was considered to be dangerous and even subversive (Tiersma 1999:39). Tiersma mentioned that once established, legal phrases in authoritative texts take on a life of their own; you meddle with them at your own risk (1999:39). He adds that, in authoritative written texts, the words will remain the same even if the spoken language and indeed the surrounding circumstances have changed, and lawyers will use the same language even if the public no longer understands it. Once this happens, the professional class that is trained in the archaic language of the texts becomes indispensable (Tiersma 1999:40). All these developments throughout history have led to an obtuse, archaic and verbose legal language in English which is one of the main reasons of the difficulties encountered by Turkish translators in translating legal texts written in English.

Bases of the Turkish Legal System The Koran (the holy book of Moslems), certain rules and provisions set by sources other than Koran, for example Mohammed the Prophet's words which are called the "traditions" or "fatwas," diversified and often contradictory provisions and interpretations are called in toto "Islamic Law," under which the Ottoman Empire was ruled throughout the centuries. Mohammed's words are general principles of justice and equity, with a high degree of objectivity and essentially primary regulations necessitated by the social nature and structure of the Arab community of that time. It must be mentioned that not only the Koran, but also the other sources of Muslim jurisprudence were essentially created to meet the needs of the community existing during and after Mohammed's era (Timur 1956:85). It must also be mentioned that throughout the centuries the presence of different and irreconcilable religious sects among the Moslems in the area, and the continual increase of the proportion of non-Moslem citizens after the annexation of Istanbul by Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror have created insurmountable difficulties in jurisprudence. Moreover, Islamic Law was not broad and comprehensive enough to offer reasonable solutions to legal problems of every kind. In fact, the traditions are not applicable to our contemporary society, because Islamic Law contains no provisions regulating the sundry relationships of political institutions and commercial transactions of today's world. Likewise, its rules relating to the vast field of criminal law and jurisdiction are too limited to serve their purpose adequately in the modern world (Timur 1956:86). Furthermore, a great many Islamic codes and legal provisions have become impracticable because in time they have fallen short of meeting the requirements brought about by the continuous metamorphoses of the communities and have completely lost their vitality. For example thousands of articles in the Megelle (Islamic Law), are no longer vital and integral parts of Moslem Law due to their inapplicability. To give an example: Polygamy, which was an accepted social phenomenon of Arab society, has not been practiced in Turkey after Atatürk's reforms. Due to all these shortcomings of Islamic jurisprudence, the reforms of 1839 were a conscious attempt to put an end to the confusion in the judicial sphere and to extend legal equality to all citizens without any discrimination based on religious affiliation. In 1841 a criminal code was drawn up. Although laws regulating land and sea trade appeared, there was still no legislation with regard to family and marital relationships, which constitute an integral part of society (Timur 1956: 75). Following the 1923 Lausanne Peace Conference, the Turkish government of the new republican regime in Turkey decided that the legal codes should be modeled after the legal systems of modern European states. The extensive legislative work conducted under the leadership of Atatürk was not a haphazard selection based on an irrational admiration of the European legal systems, but an inevitable solution to the paradoxes and conflicts described above (Timur 1956: 76). The legal system of the old Turkish state of the Ottomans was based on religious (Islamic) principles, i.e., throughout the centuries the rules of religion were regarded as legal rules. The political development in the 19th century brought about closer contact between Turkey and the Western world, and this necessitated a reform in the judicial system. After the new Turkish Republic was founded in 1923, the Islamic legal system of the Ottoman Empire was discarded in 1924 and was substituted by secular law. Thus, reform of private law became inevitable. As the time available for the preparation of a new national civil code was limited, there remained for the Turkish jurists only one possibility: the Swiss Civil Code which with its popularity, clarity, and especially with its simple style was suitable for the purpose (Izveren 1956:93) . Turkey has used the Swiss, German, and Italian codes as models in the field of private and public law. However, no foreign penal codes were adopted. By adoption of a foreign code (Timur 1956:77), we do not mean that a foreign system was adopted in toto. Only the legal framework of other nations, but not all the foreign laws or the entire foreign system were adopted. The new legal system was created with close attention paid to local conditions. The legal system of a nation is closely tied to the national character. The legal system of one country cannot be adopted by another without adopting the national character of the former as well. Turkey adopted the Swiss Civil Code and the Swiss Code of Obligations. The application of these codes by the Turkish courts resulted in a Turkish Civil Code and a Turkish Law of Obligations. The new Turkish Civil Law was inspired by Swiss ideas whenever these were not in conflict with the moral and social principles of the Turkish people (Ayiter 1956:42).

Nature of the Turkish Legal Language Language reform, which is one of the most widely an ardently discussed cultural problems in modern Turkey, is an issue directly related to the legal language used in Turkey today. Kemal Atatürk, the founder of the modern Turkish Republic, aimed at creating a nationalist, secular, populist, revolutionary, and etatist republic. However, the Turkish language at that time was Ottoman Turkish, full of numerous Arabic and Persian words which was regarded as a disgrace because nationalism, the main ideology of "Kemalism" demanded the purification of the Ottoman Language by replacing its foreign elements with genuine Turkish words. Atatürk's cultural orientation which was based on a complete break with the Islamic past and the adoption of the secular values of modern western civilisation also supported this tendency. Therefore, the Latin script was introduced. Atatürk did not intend to create a new language as a result of a slow, evolutionary process, but by drastic measures within a short time. Thus he created a national association, the Turkish Linguistic Society, which was entrusted with the systematic reform of the Turkish language in close co-operation with the Ministry of Education, the Republican People's Party and the People's Houses (Halkevleri). In 1928, which is considered the beginning of Atatürk's "language revolution" in Turkey, the Turkish National Assembly amended Article 2 of the Constitution as "the religion of the State of Turkey is Islam, its official language is Turkish," and a few months later, the new Turkish alphabet composed of Latin characters was adopted by Parliament. In 1932, the Turkish Linguistic Society whose aim was "to bring out the genuine beauty and richness of the Turkish language and to elevate it to the high rank it deserves among the world's major languages" was officially founded. It was a hard task and there were many people and institutions who were fervently for this drastic change as well as those who were against it. Atatürk's death in November 1938 weakened the momentum of the language revolution. The Republican People's Party adopted its new programme and statutes in 1939, into which many Arabic terms previously eliminated were reinstated (Heyd 1954:40). However, the movement gained new impetus through the efforts of efforts of İsmet İnönü, Atatürk's successor. Now as the President of the Turkish Republic, he issued a statement promising to continue the work inaugurated by the late Atatürk for the purification of the language from foreign elements and the evolution of a truly national language. The most drastic expression of the renewed purist tendencies was the translation of the Turkish Constitution into purer Turkish. To a certain extent, the vocabulary of the Constitution forms part of the legal terminology, and its reform is related to that of technical and scientific terms. The drafts prepared at the Faculties of Law of Ankara and Istanbul Universities by a group which included members of Parliament interested in legal and linguistic problems and members of the Linguistic Society were taken into consideration before a final draft was submitted to Parliament and adopted in January 1945. It was an exact "translation" of the constitution of 1921 (Teşkilatı Esasiye Kanunu) which was amended in 1924 and which was based on Arabic vocabulary. In the 105 articles of the new version of the Constitution, there were only about 1410 different words borrowed from Arabic or Persian and less than 10 European words. Many of the Arabic and Persian words were replaced with Turkish ones, and those retained were given a Turkish form to the extent possible (Heyd 1954:42). The new version of the Constitution was evidently the result of a compromise between divergent opinions. Until that time, the puristic efforts of the Linguistic Society had met with certain criticism by public opinion, but during the presidency of both Atatürk and Inonu this opposition was latent, while with the growing democratisation of Turkish society after World War 2, criticism became more verbal and public. Drastic reformation of the Turkish language was strongly opposed by Istanbul University, a large section of the press, and also by the Istanbul Teachers' Association. The reasons for the opposition were, among other things, the reluctance of people to change the vocabulary they had been used to since childhood, reluctance of journalists and authors to use words unknown to the public, and a widespread opinion that language as a living organism should develop by evolution and in accordance with its intrinsic laws. The Linguistic Society was said to have created a new artificial official and eurdite language very different from the language of ordinary conversation instead of developing the existing language so that it would be understood even by the people on the street. Under the influence of all this criticism, the Sixth Language Congress, which convened in 1949, tended towards moderation in linguistic reform. After the Extraordinary Language Congress held in 1951, the Society's new policy was outlined as "rejecting the views of both the conservatives and extreme purists, and following a middle course." The goal was to free the Turkish language from the dominance of both eastern and western languages. The most striking manifestation of the opposition to the puristic policy of the Linguistic Society with regard to our subject was the revocation of the "translated" 1945 version of the Constitution. In 1952, by the vote of an overwhelming majority, Parliament decided to reintroduce the old text of 1924 including later amendments but without any change in language. At the same time, many Arabic terms were reinstated instead of Turkish neologisms in the language of law and administration.

Lastly, on July 9, 1961 a new version of the Constitution, written in completely clear and modern Turkish was submitted to a plebiscite and accepted. In 1971 and 73 some major changes were introduced into the Constitution. Following the coup d'Ttat of 1980, the previous Constitution was partially changed. In 1982, as an act of restoration of the democratic order, a new Constitution was prepared and after being submitted to a plebiscite, it was accepted and put into force the same year. A few amendments have been and still being introduced to the Constitution. However, the rest of the legislative language did not undergo a similar purification process. While the vocabulary of the Constitution has been updated, laws written in their original archaic language are still being used by the courts. Therefore, there is a large gap between the language used by the people on the street and legislation. From time to time, motions are tabled by the legislature aiming at the unity and purification of the legal language and its harmonisation with the Constitution (Özdemir, 1969:122), but these attempts have not resulted in concrete legislative action.

Today, after more than 50 years, it is evident that the language reform has succeeded in changing the vocabulary of modern Turkish to a great extent. The vocabularies of the press, administration, scholarly works, school textbooks, and literature are written in Turkish using many words introduced by the Linguistic society, along with some Arabic or Persian words. These Arabic or Persian words can be detected especially in the discourse of elderly people. The presence of old and new words side by side in legal texts, and the fact that the language of law is still archaic Turkish including lots of Arabic and Persian words with which the young generation is completely unfamiliar are the main reasons for the difficulties encountered by legal translators in Turkey.

General Features of Legal Language (Turkish and English) The general features of legal language that will be discussed here apply both to English and Turkish legal languages. As Melinkoff has suggested, "legalese" is a way of "preserving a professional monopoly by locking up the trade secrets in the safe of an unknown tongue" (1963:101). On the other hand, as Tiersma suggests quoting from Sir Edward Coke, lawyers justify keeping the laws in an "unknown tongue" by pretending to "protect the public" (1999:28). Lawyers tend to defend their technical vocabulary as essential to communication within the profession, since they can easily understand each other using the special terminology. Studying law is in a large measure studying a highly technical and frequently archaic vocabulary and a professional argot (Goodrich 1987: 176). Law is a profession of words. The general features of legal language that apply to both English and Turkish legal languages are the following: It is different from ordinary language with respect to vocabulary and style. The prominent feature of legal style is very long sentences. This predilection for lengthy sentences both in Turkish and in English is due to the need to place all information on a particular topic in one complete unit in order to reduce the ambiguity that may arise if the conditions of a provision are placed in separate sentences. Another typical feature is joining together the words or phrases with the conjunctions "and, or" in English and "ve, veya" (meaning "and," "or") in Turkish. Tiersma suggests that these conjunctions are used five times as often in legal writing as in other prose styles (1999: 61). Thirdly, there is abundant use of unusual sentence structures in both languages. The law is always phrased in an impersonal manner so as to address several audiences at once. For example a lawyer typically starts with "May it please the court" addressing the judge or judges in the third person (Tiersma 1999:67) while in Turkey court decisions begin with "Gereği dnşnnnldn" (the necessary penalty has been decided on) when a judge sentences somebody to a certain penalty. Another feature is the flexible or vague language. Lawyers both try to be as precise as possible and use general, vague and flexible language. Flexible and abstract language is typical of constitutions which are ideally written to endure over time (Tiersma 1999: 80). The features of "legalese" that create most problems are its technical vocabulary and archaic terminology. Both Turkish and English legal languages have retained words that have died out in ordinary speech, the reasons of which have been explained above. Historical factors and stylistic tradition explain the character of present-day English and Turkish legal languages. Many old phrases and words can be traced back to Anglo-Saxon, old French, and Medieval Latin, while in Turkish they can be traced back to the Persian used in the Ottoman Empire. Archaic vocabulary and the grammar of authoritative older texts continue to influence contemporary legal language in both Turkey and Britain because, just as the Bible or the Koran is the authoritative source of religion for believers, documents such as statutes, constitutions, or judicial opinions are the main sources of law for the legal profession (Tiersma 1999:96). And in Turkey, just as the religious circles are reluctant in changing the Arabic language of the Koran into Turkish language, the legal circles are reluctant to change and modernise the Arabic-influenced archaic language of the Turkish legal language. Legal language is conservative because reusing tried and proven phraseology is the safest course of action for lawyers. Archaic language is also authoritative, even sounds majestic both in Turkish and English. As Tiersma suggests "using antiquated terminology bestows a sense of timelessness on the legal system as something ... deserving of great respect" (1999:97). In Turkey, old people using the same kind of archaic language inspire awe in most of us. In both legal languages there are many words that have a legal meaning very different from their ordinary meanings. Tiersma calls the legal vocabulary that looks like ordinary language but which has a different meaning peculiar to law as "legal homonyms" (1999:112). This is one of the problematic features in translation. There are also synonyms in legal languages of both Turkish and English, i.e., different words with the same meaning. One of the features of legal language which makes it difficult to understand and translate (for an ordinary translator/reader) of course is its unusual and technical vocabulary. Some of its vocabulary such as "tortfeasor," "estoppel" in English and "ahzukabza" (take and receive) in Turkish, which do not even suggest a meaning to an ordinary person, is a complete mystery to non-lawyers. Another feature of the English legal language is the modal verb "shall." In ordinary English, "shall" typically expresses the future tense, while in English legal language "shall" does not indicate futurity, but it is employed to express a command or obligation (Tiersma 1999:105). However, in Turkish legal documents, the way of expressing legal obligation is using simple present tense. Problems and Difficulties Encountered in Translating Legal Texts Between English and Turkish Translation of legal texts (from English into Turkish and visa versa) poses problems closely related to both the nature of legal language and the specific features of both English and Turkish legal systems and languages. The examples that follow cover a wide range of legal texts; from contracts to resolutions to treaties. I) Problems arising due to the differences in legal systems: The most daunting aspect of legal translation common to almost every language is the culture-specific quality of the texts. As Martin Weston suggests, "the basic translation difficulty of overcoming conceptual differences between languages becomes particularly acute due to cultural and more specifically institutional reasons (1983:207). Newmark also suggests that "a word denoting an object, an institution, or if such exists, a psychological characteristic peculiar to the source language culture is always more or less untranslatable" (quoted in Weston 1983:207). The equivalence of an institution, a division, a concept, or a term may not be found in the target language—in our case, in Turkish. There are no words in Turkish to express some of the most elementary notions of British law. The words "common law" and "equity" are only two of the examples. There is no system of "common law" and "equity" in the Turkish legal system. Moreover how should we translate "barrister" or "solicitor" into Turkish as there are no such job titles in the Turkish legal system. A Turkish legal translator overcomes the difficulty of translating a term or a concept which is absent in the target culture using the following methods: 1) Paraphrasing This method is explaining the SL concept if it is unfamiliar to the target reader, when there is no equivalent institution or concept in the target culture and when a literal translation will make no sense. As we have mentioned above, the translation of "barrister" and "solicitor is problematic, since in the Turkish legal system there are no such job titles. As we know, in the British legal system a "barrister" is a person who executes the legal case in courts, whereas "solicitors" are those who declare their opinions and recommendations to the parties in a lawsuit and who provide contact with the barrister (Yalçınkaya 1981:153). As a concept, 'barrister' is more or less the formal equivalent of 'lawyer' in Turkey. To overcome the conceptual confusion, barrister is translated as "duruş ma avukatı," meaning the "lawyer in court," whereas "the solicitor" is translated as "danış ma avukatı" which means the "consultant lawyer." This is paraphrasing the concepts which are not shared both by the source and target cultures. Another concept, which commonly causes translation problems between different cultures, is "Lord Chancellor." Since there is no "House of Commons" or "House of Lords" in the Turkish parliamentary system, these terms are also translated by paraphrasing. "Lord Chancellor" is translated as "Lordlar Kamarası Baskanı" meaning the "Head of the House of Lords." Concepts peculiar to the Western legal and parliamentary systems are generally translated through paraphrasing. 2) Finding the Functional Equivalence This is using a TL expression that is the nearest equivalent concept. Of course it is much more difficult to find the functional equivalent of a legal SL term where the legal institutions of two cultures do not have much in common. To quote an example that is problematic mostly for translators between English and French: "Solicitor" (which is used for the French "notaire") has the Turkish functional equivalent of "notary." Moreover, the generally used Turkish functional equivalent of "solicitor" is "avukat" which is the literal translation of "lawyer." Both "court" and "tribunal" are translated as "mahkeme" which is the literal translation of "court." Translation of "tribunal" as "mahkeme" is rendering the functional equivalent of it. Using this method frequently leaves the translator short of terminology due to the different structures of the legal systems of the Turkish and British cultures. 3) Word-for-Word (Literal) Translation This is translating lexical word for lexical word, and making adjustments of prepositions, endings, and other grammatical features if necessary. For example, "Court of Protection" is translated directly as "Koruma Mahkemesi" (Koruma=Protection and Mahkeme=Court) while the words change place so as to ensure the correct syntactic arrangement in Turkish. Other examples may include the translation of "Treasury Solicitor" as "Hazine Avukatı" (Treasury=Hazine and Solicitor= Avukat), "Courts of Chivalry" as "Şövalyelik Mahkemesi" (Chivalry=Şövalyelik, Court= Mahkeme). On the other hand, when the source text is in Turkish, and when it is translated into English, it makes a difference whether the target text is directed to American or English culture, because the terms and institutions of different cultures using the same language may be different. For example, a "prison" in the British System is a "penitentiary" in the American system, and they are both translated as "hapishane" into Turkish. A "Magistrate's Court" in the British legal system is "Civil Court of Peace" in the American legal system, and they are both translated as "Sulh Mahkemesi" into Turkish. "Attorney" and "Sheriff" do not have simple translated equivalents in UK English and other languages (Rey 1995:88). II) Problems arising due to the difference in the language systems, syntactic arrangements, and word orders of the Turkish and English languages:

A) The fact that the verb is placed at the beginning of a sentence in English (SVO pattern), while it is placed at the end of a sentence in Turkish (SOV pattern) creates problems for the translator. The following sentences are taken from the "Resolution adopted by 933 votes to 65, with 356 abstentions by the 94th Inter-Parliamentary, Conference (Bucharest, 13 October 1995), "To Comprehensively Ban Nuclear Weapons Testing And Halt All Present Nuclear Weapons Tests": The 94th Inter-Parliamentary Conference, Hoping that these tests will not complicate the already difficult negotiations underway on a comprehensive test ban treaty and make it more difficult to achieve a truly comprehensive and internationally verifiable treaty, Recalling that the Inter-Parliamentary, Union has a duty to promote the cause of international peace and security, nuclear disarmament and the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons,... The translation into Turkish is as follows: Bu denemelerin nükleer silah denemelerini yasaklayan kapsamlı bir anlaşma için yapılmakta olan meşakkatli görnşmeleri daha da zorlastırmayacagını umarak Parlementolararası Birliğin uluslar arası barış ve güvenlik davasını, nükleer silahsızlanmayı ve nükleer silahların artışını engellemeyi destekleme görevine sahip olduğunu hatırlatarak The underlined words, which are placed at the beginning of the sentences in the source text, will automatically shift to the end of the sentences in the translated text which is in Turkish: This difference in word orders of both languages can also be visually explicit. The heading of the source text is as follows:

RESOLUTION On Economic and Trade Relations Between the Community and Turkey. However, the target text has the following arrangement: Topluluk ve Türkiye Arasındaki Ekonomik ve Ticari İlişkiler Üzerine KARAR As obvious, even the visual arrangement of the heading shows great difference as the word "Resolution" (meaning "Karar" in Turkish) is placed at the beginning in the English text, while it is placed at the end in the Turkish sentence. B) Another difficulty arises due to the use of modal verb "shall" in legal English. When they study the grammar of the English language, Turkish students learn that "shall" is the modal verb indicating futurity, and therefore they tend to translate the sentences containing "shall" as future tense into Turkish. However, as Danet suggests (1985:281), in formal English legal language, "shall" is used to express authority and obligation (Bowers 1989:35), rather than futurity. The following is an example taken from the Memorandum signed in Prague on 19 October 1989 between Czechoslovakia and Turkey: Article 2: "The Parties shall take the necessary measures to ensure the mutual facilitation of tourist flow in their respective countries Article 5: "The parties shall exchange information, technology and experts in the field of tourism training." The translation is as follows: Madde 2: "Taraflar kendi ulkelerinde turist akısını karsılıklı olarak kolaylastırmayı saglamak icin gerekli tedbirleri alırlar (The parties take the necessary measures...).

"Madde 5:"Taraflar turizm eğitimi alanında karşılıklı bilgi, teknoloji ve uzman mübadelesinde."bulunurlar (The parties exchange information)."

The verbs in bold letters are the verbs of both texts. The source text uses the modal verb "shall," while the correct translation uses the present tense.

III) Problems arising due to the lack of an established terminology in Turkey in the field of law: Although the terminographer Daniel Gouadec says that identifying only one term for a specific concept, object, or situation is impossible (1990:XVII), the necessity for each subject field to describe, standardise, and teach its terminology has now become evident in the age of ever increasing international relationships. The following examples, which are taken from The Treaties Establishing the European Communities (1996), and their translations, show that there may be more than one counterpart in Turkish of a single word in English: 1) Any European state may apply to accede to this Treaty. It shall address its application to the Council, which shall act unanimously after obtaining the opinion of the High Authority; the council shall also determine the terms of accession; likewise acting unanimously. Accession shall take effect on the day when the instrument of accession is received (Article 98). The translation into Turkish is as follows: 1) Her Avrupa devleti işbu antlaşmaya taraf olmak için başvuruda bulunabilir. Antlaşmaya taraf olmak isteyen devlet Konseye basvurur. Konsey, Yüksek Otoritenin görüşünü aldıktan sonra oybirligiyle karar alır ve yine oybirliğiyle katılma şartlarını belirler. Bu katılma katılma belgesinin işbu antlaşmanın .......(Avrupa Topluluklarını Kuran Temel Antlaşmalar,1996, Madde:98). As noted above, the verb "accede" is translated as "taraf olmak," while its noun derivation "accession" is rendered by a noun which is derived from a totally different verb "katılmak" in Turkish. Thus two different verbs which are "taraf olmak" and "katılmak" are used in the target text for a single verb "access" in the source text. Another example is the following: 2)....to evade the rules of competition instituted under this Treaty, in particular by establishing an artificially privileged position involving a substantial advantage in access to supplies or markets (Article 66) . 2)...özellikle ikmal kaynaklarından veya pazarlardan yararlanmada önemli bir avantaj elde edecek şekilde....(Madde:66). Unlike in article (1), the same English verb "access" is rendered by a completely different Turkish verb "yararlanma" which literally has the English equivalence of "benefit from." To elaborate on the examples and in order to indicate how serious the issue is, let us take a look at some more examples from the Translation into Turkish of the "Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms." Excerpts from the texts in target and source languages are given below: Article 5: Everyone has the right to liberty and security of person. No one shall be deprived of his liberty save in the following cases and in accordance with a procedure prescribed by law: a) The lawful detention of a person after conviction by a competent court b) The lawful arrest or detention of a person..... The translation into Turkish is as follows: 1)..... a) Salahiyetli her mahkeme tarafından mahkumiyeti üzerine usulu dairesinde hapsedilmesi b) Bir mahkeme tarafından kanuna uygun olarak verilen bir karara.... The adjectives "lawful" having exactly the same meanings in the source text above are translated as "usulu dairesinde" and "kanuna uygun olarak" respectively in the target text, and these are official translations. IV) Problems due to the use of unusual sentence structures in the English legal language: As Tiersma suggests, there are various kinds of subjunctives, all of which have died out in modern English, especially in spoken language (1999:93). The type of "legal" subjunctive is a construction known as the "formulaic subjunctive" which involves use of a verb in its base form and conveys roughly the same meanings as "let" or "may." This usage, which Tiersma characterises as formal and old fashioned, is still very much alive in legal usage. The frequent phrase used at the beginning of a Power of Attorney, "Know all men by these presents" is a completely uncommon word order and uncommon sentence structure. In a "Vekaletname" in Turkish, which is the counterpart of a Power of Attorney, there is no uncommon sentence structure as such, although the general sentence structure of it resembles that of the Power of Attorney with respect to its length and complexity. Another example is the "British enactment clause" (Tiersma 1999:93), which is found at the beginning of all statutes: "Be it enacted by the Queen's most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same....." In addition to the subjunctive, this clause illustrates several other common features of legal English, such as French word order (Lords Spiritual and Temporal), formal language (Queen's most Excellent Majesty), odd word order (in Parliament assembled), and conjoined phrases (by and with, advice and consent) (Tiersma 1999:93), which are still very challenging features for a Turkish legal translator. V) The fifth main reason for the errors and difficulties in the translation of legal texts is the fact that the language used in the legal system in Turkey is very old and generally quite different from the currently used language for the reasons explained in the previous chapters. There are still many words and patterns in legal Turkish texts which are completely out of date in other types of discourse. The following terms are taken from the Contract signed between the Public Airports Administration of the Republic of Turkey and Company X for the purchase of special material. These terms are completely in old Turkish and are used nowhere else in Turkey presently except in legal texts. Although they are not understandable to a Western reader, it would be interesting to see the difference between the old Turkish words which still occur in legal texts and their modern Turkish versions used in non-legal discourse. Their English equivalents are given in parenthesis below: Words in Old Turkish Modern Turkish Versions gayri kabili rücu (irrevocable) geri dönülmez muhabir banka (correspondent bank) bildirimci banka vecibe (obligation) yükümlülük navlun (freight) gemi taşıma ücreti sevk vesaiki (shipping document) gönderme belgesi We could provide many more examples. The old Turkish used in the field of law not only makes the translation of texts a hard task, but also hampers the instructor's endeavours to teach translation in this field. It is absolutely necessary that the current use of the old words be taught to the translation students before starting the actual translation process. The archaic expressions found in legal English for reasons mentioned in the previous chapters add to the problem. These include: hereinafter, hereto, herein, hereby, hereof, thereof, therein, thereby, thereto, etc. None of them can be translated by a single word, and translators often have a hard time finding equivalents for these archaic expressions. VI) Problems arising due to the use of common terms with uncommon meanings: As Brenda Danet suggests, "legal language has a penchant for using familiar words (but) with uncommon meanings" (1985:279). Let us take, as an example, the word "assignment" which is generally known as "something assigned, a task or a duty." Turkish students of translation have learnt the word in its general literal meaning and they continue to know it as such until they have to translate an "assignment," which is a legal document. Of course, the first thing they have to do is to search for the meaning of "assignment" in a legal dictionary. The same applies to the words "whereas" and "having regard to" among many others. In legal documents such as contracts, the above-mentioned words function as "considering" or "taking into consideration," and must be so translated into Turkish. Conclusion

Sarcevic suggests that the traditional principle of fidelity has recently been challenged by the introduction of new bilingual drafting methods which have succeeded in revolutionising legal translation. Contrary to freer forms of translation, legal translators are still guided by the principle of fidelity; however their first consideration is no longer fidelity to the source text but to guarantee the effectiveness of multilingual communication in the legal field (1997:16). While lawyers cannot expect translators to produce parallel texts that are identical in meaning, they do expect them to produce parallel text that are identical in their legal effect. Thus the translator's main task is to create a text that will produce the same legal effect in practice. To do so, the translator must be able "to understand not only what the words mean and what a sentence means, but also what legal effect it is supposed to have, and how to achieve that legal effect in the other language (Sarcevic 1997:70-71). Translators must be able to use legal language effectively to express legal concepts in order to achieve the desired effect. They must be familiar with the conventional rules and styles of legal texts in every field of the individual legal systems. A legal translator must not forget that even a Will is not valid if not written in the correct style. References
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