Category Archives: European Union

by monzo

The translation of international law: the lexical and legal implications of the translator’s choices

Maria Meladaki

In most cases, international law conventions are drafted in one (or more) official languages, and then are translated to the official language of the state that has ratified the convention. The translated texts of international law conventions reflect the legal consequences that the states shall respect by ratifying an international legal instrument.
The present paper compares the translations, from English into Greek, of the Council of Europe convention entitled “Convention of the Protection of Human Rights and Dignity of the Human being with regard to the Application of Biology and Medicine: Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine” (Oviedo Convention). One translation served for the integration of the convention into Greece’s legal order and the other served for the integration of the convention into Cyprus’s legal order.
The paper analyses the translation choices made in each of the above-mentioned translations, taking into consideration the already formed structural and terminological differences in the legal discourse of the two states. In addition, the paper indicates how terminological choices during the translation process of such documents could have a strong impact on future internal legislation on the same matter. Moreover, the paper analyses translation choices that could lead to a different meaning and therefore, to different legal consequences than the ones intended when drafting the original text. The legal translator of international law should be properly trained, in a multidisciplinary level, and given access to all crucial resources to form into the translated text the true meaning of each convention, so that all beneficiaries from it, in a global level, can have access to the international protection it entails.

Keywords: legal translation, international law, legal order, bioethics, accessibility.

by monzo

The EU Master’s Degree Network in Translation and Lesser Used Languages. A step forward in the recognition of linguistic rights

Carmen Valero-Garcés

Universidad de Alcalá, FITISPos UAH

Multilingualism is a foundational part of the EU. Nevertheless, it is a ‘mutilated’ multilingualism as it is restricted by the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages (1998), which explicitly states that “regional or minority languages” refer to languages that are traditionally used in each territory of a State by the nationals of that State, and “[…] does not include […] the languages of migrants”. And yet, it is currently impossible to speak of multilingualism in the EU without considering the lesser-used languages (also called ‘minority languages,’ ‘languages of migration,’ or ‘languages of lesser diffusion’ (LLD, from here onwards). 23 million people (5.1 %) of the 447.3 million people living in the EU on 1 January 2020 were non-EU citizens (Eurostat Statistics Explained 2021). Addressing the great variety of languages and cultures that are used in our cities requires rethinking current language policies and placing more emphasis on social justice and human rights (Monzó-Nebot & Wallace 2020).  Incorporating translation and interpreting in LLD as an element of debate at the intersection between inclusion policies and language policies is a step forward. The EU DGT EMT network could be a starting point. The aim of my proposal is to present the results of research carried out by the PSIT Working Group of the EMT network (PSIT WG). The project’s main aim was, first, to ascertain which LLD the EMT MA students know, then, to analyse their language skills and how and where students use the LLD they knew to train them as future liaisons in LLD between institutions and users, instead of resorting to family or friends without training or quality guarantees (Foulquié-Rubio et al 2018, López 2021, Valero-Garcés 2021). The project was based on a mixed quantitative and qualitative methodology. Data were obtained through surveys and open-ended questions. Preliminary results indicate a considerable percentage of students with non-EU family backgrounds who know LLD, who could be trained in these languages as bridges of communication, thus guaranteeing the linguistic rights of those newly arrived who do not know the language of communication.  

Bibliographic references  

Eurostat Statistics Explained 2021 In: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Migration_and_migrant_population_statistics #Eurostat #StatisticsExplained 

Foulquié-Rubio, Anna et al. (eds.) (2018). Panorama de la traducción y la interpretación en los servicios públicos españoles: una década de cambios, retos y oportunidades. Granada: Comares. 

López, David (2021). Inmigración. Cuestión de justicia social. Una triste realidad. The Economy Journal, October, 25, 2021. <https://www.theeconomyjournal.com/texto-diario/mostrar/591609/inmigracion-cuestion-justicia-social-triste-realidad>. 

Monzó-Nebot, Esther & Wallace, Melisa. (2020). New societies, new values, new demands. Mapping non-professional interpreting and translation, remapping translation and interpreting ethics. Translation and Interpreting Studies 15:1, 2020, pp. 1–14 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1075/tis.00046.int. 

Valero-Garcés, Carmen. (2021). A place for the human factor in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. As a way of introduction. FITISPos IJ, Vol8, 2021. DOI: https://doi.org/10.37536/FITISPos-IJ.2021.8.1.289 

Keywords: language policies, inclusion policies, EMT network, translation and interpreting. 

by monzo

Making multilingualism work in the European Union: Analysing a parallel corpus of waste management regulations

Tereza Afonso

The European Union (EU) is a supranational and intergovernmental organization that develops policies and enacts legislation for 27 Member States. Since its inception, which dates back to the 1950s, multilingualism has reflected the EU’s unique approach to fostering cultural and linguistic acceptance while pursuing common economic, political, and social objectives. Equality of all 24 official languages and respect for linguistic diversity—embodied in the motto “United in Diversity”—it’s proven to be a compromise between the idyllic and the pragmatic. To ensure the smooth functioning of EU institutions, procedural languages are reduced to English, followed by French and, to a lesser degree, by German. In this context, translation is key to facilitating communication, easing interinstitutional negotiations, unveiling interdependencies, and contributing to the reconciliation of multiple legal cultures. Known as Eurolects, foreignizing varieties of national legal languages have emerged. Despite the set-up of a Eurolect Observatory and other relevant research activities, according to our knowledge, there are no studies concerning the EU variant of Portuguese. Considering English and French Eurolects as source languages and bearing in mind the EU role in the introduction of new concepts and distinctive terminology, we have compiled a parallel corpus composed of 78 regulations drawn up between 1993-2019 in the domain of waste management. Regulations are directly applicable and binding in their entirety upon all Member States, natural and legal persons. Environmental law is a dynamic, multidisciplinary, young branch of law, which aims to tackle present-day problems. Based on a five-step hierarchy, waste management promotes waste prevention, reuse, recycling, recovery, and disposal. This sets the starting point for describing the pragmatic, semantic, and lexico-grammatical characteristics of eventive specialized phraseological units (SPU) in waste management regulations translated from the main working languages into Portuguese, and studying the phenomena derived from the contact of language systems at the supranational level.

Keywords: European Union, Regulations, Eurolects, Waste Management, Eventive SPUs, English, French, Portuguese.

by monzo

The Labelling of Products in the European Union – Time for a more Coherent EU Language Policy

Stefaan VAN DER JEUGHT

The free movement of goods is one of the four core freedoms in the EU internal market. In that regard the linguistic diversity of the EU can form an obstacle to the achievement of that aim, when on a national or even subnational level specific regulatory linguistic requirements are imposed on the labelling of products. In this article, it will be shown that EU legislation does not tackle this issue in a general and uniform way, but proceeds rather on a case-to-case basis. The lack of a global and coherent policy in this regard has resulted in heterogeneous linguistic arrangements and lacking language rights for consumers. It is argued in this article that there is need for more coherent linguistic rights on the basis of clear and transparent general criteria such as product hazards, public health and consumer protection. As a general rule, a better balance should be struck between the essential principles underlying any linguistic regulatory provision, namely the freedom of language (for manufacturers, importers and distributors) to market their products in the EU internal market on the one hand, and the territoriality principle on the other, according to which Member States may determine the use of languages on their territory in order to protect the language rights of end-users and consumers.

Keywords: Product labelling, language rights of consumers

by monzo

Towards a multilingual modus operandi in the EU

Alice Leal

Associate Professor of Translation and Interpreting Studies at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg

Multilingualism is one of the pillars of the European Union, enshrined – however precariously – in its treaties and indirectly celebrated in its motto, “united in diversity”. Its 24 official and working languages enjoy the same status, at least de jure, and so do all language versions of any given text (authentication of translations). 

Yet multilingualism no longer has its own portfolio in the Commission, having been systematically downgraded and now being under the auspices of the Directorate-General for Translation, a directorate which nevertheless does not have a unit dedicated to the fostering – or the very least the monitoring – of linguistic diversity in the EU. Moreover, with the rise of English as the EU’s unofficial lingua franca, increasingly more material is produced in English and not translated at all, and the vast majority of the legally binding documents that do get translated into all official languages are drafted in English – a fact that often goes unnoticed due to the authentication of language versions.

Therefore, we should ask ourselves whether the EU’s de facto linguistic and translation regimes are not at odds with the treaties – including the Charter of Fundamental Rights. Drawing together transdisciplinary threads from translation studies, linguistics, political science and philosophy of language, this paper places emphasis on models of linguistic justice (e.g. Grin, Van Parijs), language rights (e.g. Shohamy, Skutnabb-Kangas) and language policy (e.g. Johnson, Ricento) to propose a new linguistic modus operandi for the EU, grounded on (1) a renewed appreciation of language and linguistic diversity, (2) an increased translation output and a more transparent translation regime, and (3) de facto multilingualism through intercomprehension, translation and interpreting. It reflects and expands the findings recently published in English and translation in the European Union: Unity and multiplicity in the wake of Brexit (2021, Routledge).

Keywords: multilingualism, translation, English as a lingua franca, intercomprehension.