Plain language for law : jurilinguistic and discursive challenges

Seminar of interlanguage jurilinguistics, "Standards and their formulas"
2nd meeting on 30th March, 2018

The aim of this workshop is to build a permanent network of researchers from the fields of law, terminology, legal discourse analysis and translation, who are working on issues of “legal formulization”. The theme of the second workshop, “Legal simpification: legal-linguistic and discursive stakes”, follows on from the discussion at the first workshop. Legal discourse being both a linguistic and a legal act (cf. Cornu, Linguistique juridique, Montchrestien, 2005, p. 207), this second workshop aims at discussing the mutual influence of law on legal language and of legal language on law itself, especially in the context of legal simplification. This raises the question about the role of terminology in the semiotization of practices and about how symbolic (i. e. linguistic) modifications engendered by legal or institutional evolution can be evaluated.

Linguistic expertise can / must also be mobilised to define even the most commonly used concepts: brevity, concision, intelligibility or accessibility. How are these defined? How can they be measured? And how are the receivers defined to whom these concepts are applied? Are they as homogeneous as the advocates of legal simplification claim?

CRTT - Centre de Recherche en Terminologie et Traduction (EA656) of the University Lumière Lyon 2

Centre Interlangues TIL of the University of Bourgogne - Franche-Comté (EA4182)

AGORA - (EA 7392) of the University of Cergy-Pontoise

Free entrance but required registration with julien.longhi@u-cergy.fr

Delaited program