Synonymy and Polysemy in a Bilingual Law Dictionary
Abstract
This paper focuses on issues of synonymy and polysemy in the language of law, and the treatment of these issues in the "Czech-English Law Dictionary with Explanations". The introduction outlines the context of legal translation in the Czech Republic and its potential impact upon special bilingual lexicography. Then, the traditional understanding of what a term is and its application to legal terminology is mentioned. Legal terminology is dealt with in the third part; three different levels of vocabulary used in legal texts are outlined and their relevance to dictionary making is explained. Synonyms in the language of law are considered with respect to their intension and distribution, and an example is given to show that most expressions or phrases which are interchangeable synonyms in general language should be treated carefully both in legal translation and in preparing a bilingual law dictionary. Finally, polysemy in legal terminology is discussed and examples are given to illustrate its possible lexicographical solution.
Session
8. LEXICOGRAPHY FOR SPECIALISED LANGUAGES -TERMINOLOGY AND TERMINOGRAPHY
Keywords
BibTex
@InProceedings{ELX06-092, author = {Marta Chromá}, title = {Synonymy and Polysemy in a Bilingual Law Dictionary }, pages = {735-741}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the 12th EURALEX International Congress}, year = {2006}, month = {sep}, date = {6-9}, address = {Torino, Italy}, editor = {Elisa Corino, Carla Marello, Cristina Onesti}, publisher = {Edizioni dell'Orso}, isbn = {88-7694-918-6}, }
