Projects / Programmes
Incorporating the EU legal terminology into the Slovenian legal system
January 1, 2004
- December 31, 2008
| Code |
Science |
Field |
Subfield |
| 5.05.00 |
Social sciences |
Law |
|
| Code |
Science |
Field |
| S110 |
Social sciences |
Juridical sciences |
| S155 |
Social sciences |
European law |
| S114 |
Social sciences |
Comparative law |
| H350 |
Humanities |
Linguistics |
| H353 |
Humanities |
Lexicology |
law of the European Union, European law, legal science, legal terminology, legal practice, cultural identity, relationship between the European and national legal order
Researchers (22)
Organisations (2)
Abstract
The goal of the research programme is to accompany the first years of Slovenia’s membership in the European Union with an adequate development of its legal terminology. By doing so, the programme will not only offer assistance in incorporating the Union legal order into the Slovenian legal field and language, but also try to ensure that in this process the Slovenian legal language, a significant feature of the Slovenian national identity, maintains its comprehensiveness and autonomy. The work is oriented towards preparing a dictionary, ie a terminological database of the Union legal order, with the earlier phases focusing on the search of the appropriate Slovenian counterparts to specific English terms, while the final version of the database is planned so as to be used in both ways, locating the suitable English translations for Slovenian terms as well as vice versa. The database thus prepared will also be made available to the appropriate governmental offices, as the purpose of the programme is not only in the further expansion of the existing terminology in Slovenian but also in the verification or re-examination of the existing solutions in terminology translations. Furthermore, it should be stressed that the subject of the research stretches beyond the translation issues and is extended to include the wider terminology that is part of the theory of the various legal fields and represents an inextricable tool of legal science that takes part also in the shaping of the European legal order and not only in its execution. It is evident that the possibility of substantive work in the field of European law is only possible for the Slovenian legal community and in the spirit of Slovene (legal) identity if a suitable legal terminology is fashioned and nurtured at the same time.
Significance for science
No scientific work is possible without an adequate terminology, which is all the more true for law as it is inherently dedicated to the regulation of societal relations. The creation and maintenance of a suitable legal terminology, along with a long-term care for an appropriate legal language in Slovenian, is thus inevitably one of the key taska of the Slovenian legal science and the broader Slovenian polity, which is also well evidenced by more than twenty legal dictionaries of various types that have been prepared to this date, and by the fact that the very first terminological dictionaries in Slovenia had been prepared in the field of law. The accession to the European Union - as well as the special nature of the European legal order as an autonomous supranational order sui generis - has thus, apart from substantive, organisational and political challenges, also posed a terminological challenge to the Slovenian legal community, and despite the years of preparations this challenge has hardly ended with the day of the accession. The European law is constantly evolving and even the older Member States are thus constantly faced with new terminological issues requiring an appropriate transposition of the new "European" legal institutes into their own national legal systems. With the newer Member States, this challenge is only greater still because of the greater initial shock. Despite a relatively extensive database of European legal terminology, new issues arise daily that concern either the task for determine suitable terms or their exact role within the Slovenian legal order. Assistance is needed - and desired - by the translation divisions in the European institutions that must ensure for a suitable translation of French and English legal texts and who are mostly (apart from the Court of Justice of the European Communities) staffed with non-lawyers. The government authorities are planning for the creation of special mechanisms to verify the quality of the newly crafted terminology in various fields. The need for a consolidated and substantively stable terminology is also expressed by the legal practice. A suitable crafted legal terminology is thus a necessary precondition for a successful (if not any) development and the functioning of the Slovenian legal science. Without a comprehensive and consistent terminology of its own, it is not possible to have such an autonomous legal science either.
Significance for the country
The significance of this programme for the social and cultural development of Slovenia is self-evident, as evidenced by point 7.1. Both the functioning of the public administration and the cultural development with the protection of cultural heritage are dependant on a permanent and dedicated care for a comprehensive and rich vocabulary of Slovenian (legal) language. If it is true that science cannot exist without language, then it is truer still that we can speak neither of Slovenian legal science nor of Slovenian legal practice without an appropriate Slovenian legal language. The extent of the actual significance or the material effect of a suitable legal terminology is, just like with the majority of general legal acts, difficult to measure in quantitative terms. On the one hand, it can be "measured" in the value offered for the final addressees of the EU legal order, be they individuals or legal entities, by comprehensible and accessible versions of the official European acts in their own language; on the other, it can also be done so in the negative consequences of an erroneous transposition into the Slovenian legal system or ratrher by the absence of such instances in the event of an appropriate legal terminology. The examples of such negative implications of an inappropriate terminology can be found in any EU Member State and may likely never be completely avoided. In any event, however, they can at least be limited, if not eradicated, by putting enough care in appropriately introducing the EU legislation into the Slovenian legal system. This task primarily falls on the shoulderrs of all those translators and legal authors who daily craft the Slovenian versions of the concepts and texts of EU law. But, it may well go without saying that in this task, they can (and must) be greatly helped by a properly and comprehensively constructed legal terminology.
Most important scientific results
Final report,
complete report on dLib.si
Most important socioeconomically and culturally relevant results
Final report,
complete report on dLib.si
