[Corpora-List] Corpus Linguistics and Legal Phraseology

Tue Jun 10 12:56:15 UTC 2014

*Special Issue of FACHSPRACHE on Legal Phraseology and Specialised Meanings
in Multilingual Settings*

*Guest editors: *Stanisław Goźdź-Roszkowski (University of Łódź)*; *Gianluca
Pontrandolfo (University of Trieste)

Corpus linguistics and the emergence of specialised computerised resources
have given fresh impetus to the study of phraseology. This has resulted in
the emergence of the distributional (Evert, 2004), frequency-based
(Nesselhauf, 2004) approach which adopts a bottom-up corpus-driven approach
to identify lexical co-occurrences (Sinclair, 1987). At the same time, the
notion of phraseology has expanded to denote “the whole range of
co-occurrence patterns” (Granger 2005) or “the co-occurrence of a form or a
lemma of a lexical item and one more or additional linguistic elements of
various kinds which functions as one semantic unit in a clause or sentence
and whose frequency of co-occurrence is larger than expected on the basis
of chance” (Gries 2008:6). Despite the growing interest in phraseology and
its recognised pervasiveness in language (e.g. Granger & Meunier, 2008;
Römer& Schulze, 2009), research into phraseological items and patterns in
legal discourse remains relatively underexplored. This perceived gap in
legal phraseology research is particularly serious in respect of
multilingual, contrastive studies.

>>From a theoretical perspective, few attempts have been made so far to
define the conceptual borders of legal phraseological patterns, with the
remarkable exception of Kjær (1990a, 1990b, 2007).

>>From an applied/textual perspective, the existence of recurrent
combinations of words in legal language has never been questioned since the
very preliminary studies on legal language (see, for example, the early
studies on binomial and multinomial expressions: Mellinkoff 1963, 1982;
Crystal & Davy 1969; Gustafsson 1975, 1984; Thorntorn 1987; Maley 1987,
1994; Child 1992; Bhatia 1984, 1993; Wagner 2002).However, apart from these
preliminary – exclusively monolingual/intralingual (English) – studies,
there are no systematic and multilingual investigations focusing on
phraseology in legal language.

The existing research in legal phraseology can be classified into four main
groups (see Pontrandolfo 2013: 151-166):

1.      Traditional studies that focus on the lexico-syntactic combinations
of words in legal discourse, especially on specialised collocations (see,
among others, Berdychowska 1999, NardonSchmid 2002, Lombardi 2004, Rovere
1999, Nystedt 2000, Cruz Martínez 2002, Giráldez 2007, Anderson 2006,
Montenegro Assunção 2007, Biel 2011, Bhatia et al. 2004)

2.      Studies that deal with the formulaic nature of legal language by
means of routine formulae used in legal communication (see, among others,
Rega 2000, Monzó 2001, Carvalho Fonseca 2007, Giurizzato 2008, Bukovčan
2009)

3.      Lexicographic investigations aimed at compiling legal dictionaries
or glossaries/terminological databases (see, among others, De Groot 1999,
François &Grass 1997, Grass 1999, Valero Gisbert 2008, Fernández Bello
2008, Gómez Royo 2010)

4.      Studies that adopt a less rigid notion of phraseology and rely on
large collections of legal corpora, used as tools to retrieve co-occurrence
patterns, following a distributional approach (see, for example, Mazzi
2009, 2010; Kopaczyk 2013; Goźdź-Roszkowski 2006; 2011; Goźdź-Roszkowski
&Pontrandolfo, *forth.*)

The editors invite submissions that present innovative studies addressing
empirical/data-driven investigations on phraseological patterns in legal
discourse/institutional settings, especially from a contrastive,
cross-linguistic and/or corpus perspective. Special emphasis should be
placed on the role of phraseological items and patterns in expressing and
encoding specialised meanings, including social, interactive and cognitive
aspects linked to knowledge maintenance structure and transfer, generic
integrity and variation.

Possible topics include but are not limited to the following:

1.      How phraseological patterns reflect conceptual knowledge frames,
scripts and mental models in which legal terms are embedded;

2.      How phraseology is used to express evaluation, evidentiality and
stance;

3.      How phraseological patterns can be used to examine variation in
legal genres;

4.      How phraseology can contribute to maintaining generic integrity;

5.      The relationship between terminology and phraseology in legal
discourse;

6.      Data-driven studies on traditional phraseological patterns (e.g.
lexical collocations, lexical bundles, routine formulae, doublets and
triplets, etc.);

7.      Phraseology and legal translation;

8.      Translation-oriented studies of phraseological patterns;

9.      Translated vs. non-translated legal phraseology;

*Submission details*

*20 June 2014  *Submission of *abstracts* to: legalphraseology2015 at gmail.com

Abstracts of up to 700 words (exclusive of references) should clearly state
research questions, approach, method, data and (expected) results.

*15 July 2014  *Notification of *acceptance*

*1 January 2015 * *journal-ready paper* for review to be submitted by email
to Stanisław Goźdź-Roszkowski and Gianluca Pontrandolfo

*Mid-November 2015  **Publication*

-- 
Prof. nadzw. dr hab. Stanislaw Goźdź-Roszkowski
Associate Professor
Department of Translation Studies, University of Lodz
[Zakład Translatoryki, Uniwersytet Łódzki]
Institute of English Studies (Instytut Anglistyki)
Kościuszki 65,
90-514 Lodz, Poland
tel/fax 48 42 6655220
http://anglistyka.uni.lodz.pl/ZT?stanislaw_gozdzroszkowski
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