Conference Rationale

Introduction:

Language is approached here as inseparable from a given socio-cultural configuration - not merely consistent with, but deeply involved in, the construction and representation of reality. The focus will be on legal, political and institutional discourse as used by professionals, with particular emphasis on the negotiation of meaning in intercultural communication.
Although the use of language in law making has always been one of the main concerns of legislators, reflection on its use in the field has traditionally been left to jurists alone, usually operating within their own legal, linguistic and cultural systems. The recent developments in international exchanges and cooperation in almost every field of action impose a deeper understanding of legal systems and praxes in diverse linguistic and cultural contexts, also by professionals not directly involved in the practice of law but who are bound to encounter some kind of legal discourse in their professional practice.

Aims of the conference:

• Offer a contribution to a deeper understanding of the role and function of language in legal and institutional settings in an international, inter-cultural perspective which may also be useful in the training of practitioners in the fields of law, politics and diplomacy, business and translation.

• Provide an opportunity to disseminate some of the outcomes both of the international project on 'Generic Integrity in Legal Discourse in Multilingual and Multicultural Contexts' and of the national project on 'Intercultural Discourse in Domain specific English' both of which include a set of grounded analyses of the discourses of law as used in different languages, cultures and legal systems and involving different professional contexts.

• Provide an opportunity for interdisciplinary, collaborative and comparative initiatives involving relevant areas of interaction between law and language in different legal practices and contexts.

Themes and Contexts:

• Issues concerning the definition and clarification of legal concepts
• Transparency, all-inclusiveness and specificity of legal discourse
• Terminological analysis in the clarification of legal concepts
• Linguistic issues arising from cross-cultural legal practice
• Discourse analytical and linguistic consequences of legal globalisation
• Issues arising from translation and the training of legal professionals
• Semantic and pragmatic analysis of multilanguage legal and institutional documents
• Socio-historical and institutional analysis of legal documents

 

The above themes will be treated within some of the following contexts.

• Legal systems
• Languages of legislation
• Socio-political and institutional contexts
• Construction, interpretation and application of rules in different legal contexts and practices
• Conceptual conflicts across languages and cultures

 

Scientific Committee
Vijay K. Bhatia
Christopher N. Candlin
Paola Evangelisti Allori
Maurizio Gotti


Organizing Committee
Ornella Corrente
Laura Di Prete
Alessandra Fazio
Michela Menghini