Comparative Law and Language (e-ISSN 2785-7417) è una rivista scientifica ad accesso aperto e sottoposta a peer review, il cui scopo è favorire l’interesse e il dibattito scientifico sul rapporto fra lingua e diritto nei diversi sistemi giuridici nazionali e sovranazionali, in prospettiva comparata. La rivista è edita a cadenza semestrale dall’Università degli Studi di Trento.
Editoriale di Comparative Law and Language, vol. 5, n. 1, giugno 2026.
Copyright (c) 2026 Elena Ioriatti https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
Erika Arban, Maartje De Visser, Jeong-In Yun (eds.), “The Language of Comparative Constitutional Law: Questioning Hegemonies”, Hart, Oxford 2025
Recensione del libro The Language of Comparative Constitutional Law: Questioning Hegemonies, a cura di Erika Arban, Maartje De Visser e Jeong-In Yun, edito nel 2025 a Oxford da Hart Publishing (DOI: 10.5040/9781509983964).
Copyright (c) 2026 Jan Engberg https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
The article focuses on the analysis of legal culture-specific words found in Crown Court criminal judgements as well as how the translation of such linguistic units may influence the outcome of a criminal trial. The main objective of the research is to demonstrate that the main linguistic problem posed by legal translations, particularly in criminal-related texts is the translation of legal culture-specific words, one of the few linguistic units in this field of which translations can fairly be considered subjective. In order to undergo the research, we have employed three main methods pertaining to qualitative research, amongst which an in-depth discourse analysis of a limited series of the most recent criminal judgements in English emitted by the Crown Court as far as the translation of legal culture-specific words in concerned and its indomitable impact on the decision-making process, but also content analysis and case study. The aim of this paper is to investigate whether automated translation is an adequate, acceptable and accurate choice in the legal translation of criminal law corpora, what are the main errors encountered and what advantages and the positive characteristics of this kind of translation in comparison with human translation. We shall also discuss the importance of acquiring comparative law knowledge in order to achieve adequate and accurate translation and argue according to this view, the role of the translator in the 21st century beyond post-editing. In order to achieve this objective, we set out a corpus-based investigation that analyses various renditions and translations of criminal judgements that focus on legal culture-bound words.
Copyright (c) 2026 Alexandra Vinci https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
Leggibilità, tempo narrativo e autorità istituzionale
Il saggio esamina l’autorità giurisdizionale nel punto d’intersezione tra filosofia del diritto, teoria narrativa e sociologia del campo giuridico. La sua ipotesi centrale è che il diritto non si limiti ad applicare norme a fatti già disponibili, ma operi come forma istituzionale di composizione del mondo sociale. Esso produce regimi di lettura, ordina temporalità, seleziona voci, attribuisce credibilità e stabilizza versioni concorrenti della realtà. La decisione giudiziaria appare, in questa prospettiva, come il risultato di operazioni di selezione, gerarchizzazione, montaggio e riscrittura che investono documenti, prove, enunciati e ritmi processuali. In tal senso, il processo diventa una tecnologia simbolica di ordinamento del visibile, più che una semplice sequenza procedurale. La conclusione sostiene che la leggibilità pubblica costituisce un indice decisivo di maturità giurisdizionale quando rende visibili e discutibili tali operazioni. Essa non coincide con una trasparenza ingenua del potere, ma con l’esposizione criticabile dei passaggi interpretativi, temporali e documentali attraverso cui l’autorità trasforma il conflitto in decisione riconoscibile e controllabile.
Copyright (c) 2026 Victor Hugo Agapito https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
The rapid development of digital technologies is reshaping the ways in which people communicate, requiring legal systems to adapt accordingly. Among the most notable developments is the increasing use of emojis as a means of conveying meaning, intention, and emotion in digital interactions. Although the idea that courts may need to interpret emojis can appear surprising, it is ultimately a logical consequence of changing forms of communication. Law has never been static; throughout history, it has continuously adapted to technological and social transformations. The emergence of emojis therefore represents not a departure from established legal practice, but a new manifestation of an enduring challenge: ensuring that legal interpretation remains responsive to contemporary modes of expression. However, such adaptation is not without difficulties. The interpretation of emojis is often context-dependent and may vary across cultures, platforms, and individuals, creating uncertainty for legal analysis. Moreover, the absence of a uniform approach to emoji interpretation among courts and jurisdictions worldwide further complicates their legal treatment. This paper examines the growing legal significance of emojis and argues that, despite these challenges, their consideration within legal analysis reflects the broader capacity of law to evolve alongside technological innovation and societal change. Particular attention is given to such developments in Canada and the United States, whose case law provides valuable insight into the emerging legal treatment of emojis in contemporary communication.
Copyright (c) 2026 Anne-Sophie Milard https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
Genealogies of the “rule of virtue” in Chinese law
This article examines the historical and contemporary meanings of the character 德 (dé) in Chinese legal and political thought, focusing on its role in the idea of 德治 (dézhì), or “rule of virtue.” Through linguistic, palaeographic, and conceptual analysis, it reconstructs the genealogy of 德 from its early appearances in Western Zhou bronze inscriptions to its development in classical Chinese philosophy and modern Chinese law. The article argues that 德 originally combined public, political, ritual, and moral dimensions, functioning as both a source of sovereign legitimacy and a practical standard of governance. In Confucian thought, 德 became a comprehensive ethical and pedagogical paradigm, closely linked to ritual order and social harmony. The article then explores how contemporary Chinese law, especially under Xi Jinping, has revived and transformed the rule of virtue by integrating moral standards into legal governance, Party supervision, civil law, company law, and oversight mechanisms. It suggests that this revival reflects both continuity with Chinese legal tradition and a politically oriented attempt to place morality under the interpretive authority of the Communist Party. Ultimately, the article shows how contemporary Chinese law challenges Western assumptions about the autonomy of law from morality and politics.
Copyright (c) 2026 Gianmatteo Sabatino https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
The duty to compare language versions of EU law
In this article, I examine case law from the European Court of Justice (ECJ) to determine the extent to which natural and legal persons must consult different linguistic versions of EU law in order to ascertain their rights and obligations. Although EU law has equal legal force in all its versions, there are instances in which a linguistic comparison seems necessary. This occurs when a given language version differs from the others. This implies that absolute trust in a single language version read in isolation is not possible, and that a de facto duty to compare linguistic versions exists. This follows implicitly from landmark ECJ judgements, such as CILFIT (1982) and Consorzio (2021). However, in other scenarios relating to linguistic discrepancies, this duty does not seem to exist. When a specific language version is not officially published in the Official Journal of the EU, natural and legal persons are under no obligation to consult other language versions (Skoma-Lux judgment, 2007). Notably, in a recent judgment (On Air Media, 2025), the ECJ ruled on another such scenario. It confirmed that EU legal acts correcting a version of EU law in a specific language have retroactive effect; however, the principles of legal certainty and the protection of legitimate expectations must be respected. Regarding this, the ECJ explicitly ruled out a duty to compare language versions of EU law when the version in question appears clear. This article assesses the various scenarios. It argues that, for the sake of coherence and fairness, there should be no obligation for natural and legal persons to compare language versions. It also suggests that the role of national judges should be enhanced in this regard.
Copyright (c) 2026 Stefaan Van der Jeught https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
Editoriale di Comparative Law and Language, vol. 4, n. 2, dicembre 2025.
Copyright (c) 2025 Caterina Bergomi https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
“Dire la Giustizia: lingue, culture e traduzioni del diritto”
Contributo dedicato alla conferenza Dire la Giustizia: lingue, culture e traduzioni del diritto, tenutasi il 19 novembre 2025 all’Università degli Studi di Milano.
Copyright (c) 2025 Jan Engberg https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
La traduzione giuridica costituisce un ambito in cui emergono con particolare evidenza le implicazioni del multilinguismo istituzionale e della diversità dei sistemi normativi. Il contributo analizza l’evoluzione dei modelli traduttivi nei contesti nazionali plurilingui e nell’Unione europea, tradizionalmente caratterizzati rispettivamente da un approccio bottom-up e da uno top-down. L’esame degli strumenti terminologici e delle pratiche operative mostra come in ambito UE si stia sviluppando una crescente sensibilità comparativa, che affianca senza sostituirlo il modello tradizionale orientato all’uniformità linguistica. Attraverso esempi tratti dall’esperienza nel contesto bilingue della Provincia autonoma di Bolzano/Bozen e nelle istituzioni europee, il contributo mette in luce convergenze e divergenze nelle modalità di affrontare i problemi terminologici, da cui emerge un quadro dinamico.
Copyright (c) 2025 Francesca Bullo https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
Normative and Ideological Coding in the Legal Register
This paper proposes a methodological approach to the study of legal language, grounded in the framework developed by the Croatian and Yugoslav legal scholar Nikola Visković in his book Jezik prava (The Language of the Law), published in Zagreb in 1989. Visković approaches legal language from semiotic and communicative perspectives. We adapt his framework to examine nineteenth‑century Serbian legal texts dating from 1835 to 1898. Our starting assumption is that legal language is double‑coded: it operates simultaneously with a natural‑language code (in this case, the nineteenth‑century Serbian literary idiom) and with a distinct legal code. A second assumption distinguishes the legal norm as a deep, universal structure from the legal provision, which is its surface representation. This distinction enables us to identify various surface realizations of the basic if–then legal norm. The third assumption differentiates normative from ideological coding in legal texts: we contend that the basic if–then form can be reconstructed in every legal text, while what remains constitutes the ideological residue. This does not imply that ideological coding is absent from the underlying form of the legal norm, but rather that the basic legal norm exhibits a degree of universality across different legal language corpora. Nineteenth‑century Serbian legal texts provide a particularly clear illustration of these claims, especially those produced during the era of the Ustavobranitelji (literally, the Defenders of the Constitution). In that period, preambles were often lengthy and comprised both obligatory normative elements and motivational passages that were not required by the legal norm but encoded ideological, political, and cultural contextual information.
Copyright (c) 2025 Jelena Pavlović Jovanović, Milan Todorović https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
Law is forbidding, correcting, punishing, helping, restoring, rewarding. Law needs tools, of other disciplines too. Language [of law too] is a means of communication and of isolation (wanted or imposed). Expressing law, interpreting law, implementing law, exploiting law needs all sorts of language. Law and economics discover and uncover rational (though still often irrational) choices. Judicial decisions are political decisions, critical legal studies point out. Law is always influenced by politics. Politics can be benefactor and destructor. Rituals as expressions of living law may have double (or multiple) meaning. Law is always influenced by religion – either explicitly or implicitly. Convivencia in the same country of people of different religions and, accordingly, application of different laws of civil status (for example in Liban, in Greece, etc.) is a fact. First nations (in Latin America, USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Caribbean, etc.) live together (not really, not always in an idoneous way) with former colonizers and immigrants. Is there a real Convivencia of laws, there (as most countries in Africa have almost managed to achieve), or primacy of one (central) law and exclusion of the others? In many countries, there are different rules for the same issues, according to the particular problems of the persons to whom they apply – hypothetically aiming at the same protection(?). Is it an opposite discrimination or just a means of organizing the way to live together? Co-existence, Com-petition, Com-paring, Con-vivencia: Harmony is feasible, is possible, is not alchemy, it respects and requires the different, in order to be a rich image of life.
Copyright (c) 2025 Elina Moustaira https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
Dante and the Methods of Comparative Law
La data di nascita del diritto comparato come scienza viene fatta coincidere con il 1900, quando, in occasione della grande Esposizione Mondiale di Parigi, Lambert e Saleilles organizzarono il primo Congresso internazionale di diritto comparato. Tuttavia, è interessante notare come Dante nelle sue opere si riveli un comparatista, ante litteram sicuramente, ma pur sempre un comparatista. Ciò, in particolare, perché utilizza ed applica le tecniche della comparazione, soprattutto con riferimento alla struttura e al testo della Divina Commedia, e per il modo di affrontare il viaggio che è chiamato a percorrere. Così facendo, Dante anticipa alcuni dei pilastri della scienza comparatistica e alcuni dei temi più attuali di essa: dai problemi di traduzione giuridica agli scopi (e metodi) della comparazione, all’importanza delle influenze – consapevoli o inconsapevoli – dei fattori culturali sul diritto e sulle sue applicazioni.
Copyright (c) 2025 Laura Maria Franciosi https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
L’intelligibilité des textes de spécialité à l’exemple du rapport d’expertise français
Le rapport d’expertise constitue l’aboutissement de la mission d’expert. Il s’agit d’un texte spécialisé destiné à être exploité, c’est-à-dire contextualisé et interprété, par ses différents destinataires. Pour réaliser cette interprétation, les destinataires du rapport disposent de connaissances et d’un horizon culturel hétérogènes, d’une part, et d’autre part, d’un intérêt pratique à comprendre un rapport d’expertise. C’est à ce titre que se pose la question de son intelligibilité. Si l’intelligibilité d’un texte est largement tributaire de la maîtrise des formes linguistiques par l’expert, elle demeure une notion difficile à appréhender en raison, notamment, de ses liens avec les notions de compréhension et de pertinence. Dans la partie théorique du présent article, il s’agira d’appréhender la notion d’intelligibilité dans son articulation avec la compréhension et la pertinence. La seconde partie réserve une large place aux exemples pratiques extraits des textes de rapport d’expertise authentiques. Elle vise à illustrer l’importance de la qualité de l’expression linguistique au regard de la qualité de l’avis d’expert, d’une part, et d’autre part, à souligner la difficulté que représente la diversité de destinataires d’un rapport d’expertise.
Copyright (c) 2025 Margarete Flöter-Durr https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
Editoriale di Comparative Law and Language, vol. 4, n. 1, giugno 2025.
Book Review: “LEGISLEULAB der Europäischen Rechtslinguistik / LEGISLEULAB for the European Legal Linguistics 2020-2023”
This book review discusses four volumes with almost identical names that were published between 2021 and 2024. They are all about the legal-linguistic analysis of EU texts and legislative procedures. While I find the topic of the volumes very interesting also for the readers of this journal, I was sceptical about the fact that they are all based on the same summer school sessions and document the work carried out during them. In my review, I will address the reasons for my scepticism, but also demonstrate why characteristics of the volumes mitigate it.
The Application of Comparative Law Methods in the Legal Translation Process
This paper aims to provide an overview of contemporary comparative law methods and demonstrate their potential for use in legal translation. While it focuses on a theoretical framework for such applications (except for one practical example), it has been preceded by other studies in which the framework proposed was tested based on examples from Polish-English legal translation. The present paper is, in particular, intended to share some of the findings of the author’s research to date with a wider international audience. It needs to be noted that although numerous authors in the field of legal translation studies present the view that comparative law and legal translation are closely related, they usually do not offer a broader overview of comparative law methods or suggest ways in which these methods are supposed to be used by translators. When such references do occur, they mainly concern the traditional functional method without considering the more pluralistic approaches that have emerged in comparative law in the last three decades. The paper proposes to distinguish the general method and the specific methods of comparative law and points to possible ways of adapting them for legal translation purposes as part of a process named ‘translational comparative legal analysis’. It also suggests that translators and translation scholars should more often tap into comparative law methodology in search of solutions useful for legal translation purposes.
Copyright (c) 2025 Przemysław Kusik https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
The Luxembourgish Language Law and Policy
This article examines language law and policy in the only EU Member State that has a trilingual official language policy in force throughout its territory. Under Luxembourg law, Luxembourgish is designated as the ‘national language’. French, on the other hand, is designated as the ‘legislative language’. In addition, Luxembourgish, French and German are the three ‘administrative and court languages’. The present study adopts a law in context approach, integrating the legal analysis of this unique language policy with an overview of the historical background and data on actual language use and practices. The main challenge of Luxembourg’s language policy is highlighted, namely finding a balance between national identity and social cohesion.
Copyright (c) 2025 Stefaan van der Jeught https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
An Insight into Linguistic Rights Before the Courts and in Public Education in the United States of America
This article aims to give a deeper insight in the linguistic rights in the United States of America (United States or US). In particular, it will analyze how these rights are protected and reflect on its effectiveness. Linguistic rights are especially important in multilingual and multicultural societies. The United States are such a society. However, we will see that the United States are evolving more towards a monolingual society, or at least are intentionally trying to implement the use of a sole language in the public sphere, through various legal and other means. This article consists of three parts. First, it will give an overview of what linguistic rights are and discuss their importance. Furthermore, it will discuss why English is the predominant language in the country today and what other languages play an important role. Second, it will lay out how linguistic rights are enshrined in the legal sphere and how these are protected. In this part, the article will focus on the legal frameworks for such rights and will take a closer look at how such rights are protected before the United States courts (both at the state and federal level). Special attention is also placed on linguistic minorities and protections for Native languages. When looking at protections before the US courts, the article will draw upon relevant case law in the matter. Finally, the article will look at the protection of linguistic rights in public education. In doing so, it will again rely on relevant case law in that regard, as well as public policy and other instruments to bring about such protections. Again, here we will have a closer look at linguistic minorities and Native languages.
Copyright (c) 2025 Loreno D’Angelo https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
European States and Status of State Languages De Jure and De Facto
This article deals with the issue of understanding the term ‘state language’ through the lens of the relationship between the concepts De Jure and De Facto. Based on their possible relationship which occurred at the constitutional level and practice of European states, I created four groups (De Jure and De Facto are the same, non De Jure but De Facto, transition group, and special cases of De Jure and De Facto). By using these four groups, I was able to categorize a research sample consisting of 42 European countries. This not only managed to portray the linguistic situation regarding state languages in Europe but also offered one of the supporting options for determining, within the framework of official language designation and language planning, which of the dominant languages in a country could truly be the state language. The main output of this article is thus a table that divides the 42 states into these four groups, containing data on the state language and its constitutional status for each state.
Copyright (c) 2025 Barbora Tomečková https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
Repenser les droits linguistiques dans l’ordre international
Ripensare i diritti linguistici nell’ordine internazionale In un mondo in cui la padronanza della lingua dominante diventa un prerequisito implicito per l’inclusione sociale e civica, i diritti linguistici restano relegati ai margini del diritto internazionale. Il loro riconoscimento parziale, spesso subordinato ad altre libertà fondamentali come la non discriminazione o la libertà di espressione, li confina in uno status derivato e residuale, riducendoli a meri accessori funzionali della convivenza. Eppure, parlare la propria lingua non è un privilegio identitario, ma un diritto umano fondamentale – un diritto all’esistenza, alla memoria, alla dignità. Attraverso un’analisi incrociata delle politiche migratorie, delle giurisprudenze nazionali e internazionali, nonché dei dispositivi normativi regionali, questo lavoro interroga la reale portata delle garanzie offerte alle comunità linguistiche. Lo studio mira a decostruire la gerarchia implicita che contrappone i diritti cosiddetti “universali” a quelli “culturali”, mettendo in luce le logiche di esclusione prodotte da tale dicotomia.
Copyright (c) 2025 Indira Boutier https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
Editoriale di Comparative Law and Language, vol. 3, n. 2, dicembre 2024.
Copyright (c) 2024 Comparative Law and Language https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0
Dal paradigma dell’interpretazione a quello della traduzione
I concetti di interpretazione e traduzione offrono al giurista una lente preziosa attraverso la quale esaminare tanto il passato, quanto lo stato attuale del diritto. Sebbene ognuna di queste discipline abbia un proprio, distinto rapporto con il diritto, insieme rivelano sinergie e cambiamenti significativi all’interno del fenomeno giuridico. Sebbene l’interpretazione e la traduzione condividano molte somiglianze, si differenziano altresì per molti aspetti: il saggio si concentra su alcuni punti essenziali di sovrapposizione e divergenza tra i due concetti, con l’obiettivo di leggere l’interpretazione e la traduzione alla luce delle profonde innovazioni che caratterizzano il panorama giuridico attuale.
While the language rights of the accused in criminal proceedings conducted before national and international courts are well established, there are other participants of the proceedings whose linguistic participation must be ensured for the fulfilment of human rights requirements. This paper focuses on the language rights of victims before the ICC on the one hand, and the language services to enforce such rights on the other. These language services include in particular the recruitment and training of paraprofessional interpreters, as well as the necessary terminology work in the so-called situation languages.
A Three-Step Strategy for Teaching Contract Drafting
The main purpose of this article is to provide a three-step strategy for teaching contract drafting. The first step focuses on the negotiation of a business deal and on understanding the needs and objectives of the contracting parties. The second step deals with the practical process of drafting a contract, looking at contract structure and types of contract clauses. Finally, the third step describes the jurilinguistic key features, which provide a linguistic frame to the agreement. Such a multifaceted approach enables teachers and students to picture the teaching process from a legal and jurilinguistic perspectives, as well as to consider contract drafting from the initial business deal and its negotiations to a range of details and specific text needed to be included in the written agreement. The set of legal documents selected for this paper is a corpus of five UK and five US sale and purchase agreements the subjects of which represent goods and services as well as share capital. Each step of the strategy includes a number of exercises that teachers can use with students for them to gain a better understanding of legal and linguistic aspects of contract drafting. The students mentioned in the paper include law students from universities in Paris, France, studying legal English and legal translation courses as well as practising lawyers who have to deal with contract drafting in English.
The Deaf as a Linguistic Minority in Poland
The article aims to introduce the issue of Deaf language rights in Poland. It is a linguistic minority that derives its identity from deafness, and its culture is based on Polish Sign Language. The Deaf linguistic minority, both in the world and in Poland, face discrimination because of their language. Therefore, we analyze the relationship between deafness and disability, outline the complexities of Deaf/Deaf community as a linguistic minority, and then contextualize Deafness and Polish Sign Language within a legal framework. An analysis of the laws and initiatives undertaken by the Deaf community in Poland shows that the current status of the Deaf in Poland is still far from satisfactory with regard to their access to goods, services and full enjoyment of their civil rights due to challenges in accessing information. An analysis of initiatives undertaken by the Deaf shows that there is a growing awareness among the Deaf community of their civil rights. These activities are inspired by the changes taking place in other countries and the initiatives of international organizations for the Deaf.
Le génocide dans les Statuts de Rome traduits
En 1972, l’arabe devint l’une des cinq langues officielles des Nations Unies. Les documents conçus par cette organisation internationale furent désormais traduits en arabe, restituant la trame terminologique/notionnelle prévue qui sera plus tard également utilisée par le Statut de Rome de la Cour pénale internationale. Bien que cette langue fût longtemps reliée aux référents religieux et tribaux, elle fait aujourd’hui partie intégrante du droit international, fondé sur un paradigme positif et universel. Dès lors, les termes arabes proposés en guise de traduction aux notions et principes du droit international s’émancipèrent progressivement de leur mémoire sémantique, référentiels religieux et reminiscences tribales. Afin de relater une telle émancipation, nous examinerons, à travers cette étude, l’équivalent arabe du terme génocide en analysant les origines étymologiques, les fonctions pragmatiques et les limites au sein de la logosphère arabe classique et moderne. Pour cela, nous nous réfèrerons au Statut de Rome dans ses versions française, anglaise et arabe, afin de mettre en lumière les ressemblances et dissemblances du transfert notionnel opéré sur ce principe propre au droit pénal international. La problématique structurante de cette étude sera centrée sur la capacité terminologique de l’arabe à exprimer le contenu cognitif et juridique du terme génocide. Autrement dit, l’arabe est-il en mesure d’en fournir une acception positive conforme aux postulats juridiques, philosophiques et sociaux du Statut de Rome ? L’équivalent arabe proposé est-il capable de rompre avec sa mémoire sémantique et l’imaginaire collectif lui étant associé ?
Book Review: “Introduction to Comparative Law, 2nd edition” by Jaakko Husa
The purpose of this review is to briefly explore some of the main features in Jaakko Husa’s Introduction to Comparative Law (2nd edition, Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2023, ISBN 978-1-50996-356-0) from a Hispanic-American comparatist perspective, considering the cultural context and, above all, the global trends in the circulation of legal knowledge.
Literature Review: The Language of the Juridification Process of Animal Law
The article provides for a literature review concerning the language of the juridification process of animal law. It considers the interaction between the increasing legal protection of animals and the use of definitions in legal literature. Without conducting a thorough examination of all the current English-language literature, it provides with some examples, showing the key trend lines.
In various countries, languages that qualify as “recognised languages” are enshrined in their respective legal frameworks. This designation remains abstract and indeterminate, making it a challenge to precisely define the official status of such recognised languages, particularly in the case of sign languages. The analysis of various legislation related to sign languages highlights commonalities in the formulation of national laws in how they uphold fundamental principles. Sign languages may or may not benefit from features of linguistic officiality, both formally and materially, compared to officially proclaimed spoken languages. Additionally, sign languages align with distinctive elements of linguistic minority rights. In other words, they are not clearly qualified as genuine official languages, like spoken languages, and simultaneously, are not expressly considered minority languages, despite some analogies. It is argued that it is feasible to develop a legal theory called asymmetric linguistic officiality of sign language. Regarding the legal statuses of sign languages, treating them as a third legal category of linguistic officiality in an intersectional sense or, better yet, addressing them as a tertium genus that specifies issues inherent to sign languages based on legal circumstances related to the rights of deaf people.