Comparative multilingual legal vocabulary

Caroline Reichling Directorate general for Translation Court of Justice of the European Union

28 March 2011, Luxembourg Context

In December 2008, the question was put before the Court’s DGT by the Publications Office

Could the Court of Justice contribute to the creation of a multilingual legal vocabulary (‘VJM’) for the various legal systems of Member States of the

European Union? 2 Context  E-Justice Communication

Portal one of the objectives of which is to use IT to improve citizens’ access to justice

Aim of VJM: To make available to lawyers and EU citizens a multilingual documentary tool for indexing and consulting the documentary resources of national legal databases

The Court’s answer: feasibility test 3 Feasibility test

 Two fields:

Rights of aliens and Family law

 All languages, but not all systems

4 Feasibility test

Two aspects managed in parallel: terminological and documentary

Tool allowing users to find information (documentary requirement, thesaurus) and to understand it (terminological requirement)

March 2009 / June 2010 5 Human resources

24 lawyer linguists covering 24 legal systems and 23 languages

Management team  2 lawyer linguists (preparatory work)  1 assistance team  1 assistant for IT support 1 coordinator 6 Technical working environment  CuriaTerm (internal terminological database)

 Wiki for virtual discussions and proposals of new concepts

 Excel for work follow-up and management of non-descriptors

 Freemind for the construction of conceptual diagrams (trees) 7 Identification of specialised terminology

8 Principal sources  Legislation (national, EU and INT)  Travaux preparatoires  Case Law  Doctrine  International conventions and agreements Specialised reading material and comparative law studies  Glossaries, dictionaries and thesaurus, especially: Eurovoc & Tesauro 9 Organisation of specialised concepts

(example: top-term «asile» (asylum)10 Recording terminological data within an internal database in a structured manner while respecting a main rule

Single-concept principle = One record per concept

= The principle that a terminology record should deal with one concept only and that all data relating to a given concept should be consolidated on one record.

11 Domains Cross references

Note12 Désignation(s) of the concept Terminological references Origin: Legal system Context (when useful)

13 14 Definition

Note

15 Definition

Note

16 Several designations for one concept Origin: sector and legal system One preferred term by legal system

17 (nd)

18 19 FORMULATION

NL: two legal systems

20 Differences with a standard thesaurus

Terminological elements (precision, relevance and reliability)

One preferred term by legal system and not by language

21 Differences with a standard thesaurus

 Relationship «to be distinguished»  Allows the saving of application notes abandon d’enfant (The failure of a parent to provide any financial assistance to or communicate with a child over a period of time) délaissement d’enfant (child abandonment, who is found abandoned)

 Management of non-descriptor Only synonyms and variants within the same record

22 Management of non-descriptors Recapitulation «Words or expressions which denote, in the natural language, the same concept or equivalent concepts or concepts considered, in the thesaurus language, as equivalent to those represented by descriptors. »

23 Management of non-descriptors

Refinement of equivalence relationships between descriptors and non-descriptors other than synonyms:

. antonyme (infidelity USE duty of fidelity)

. narrower and national (PACS (FR) / civil partnership (UK) USE registered partnership (UE)

. narrower and marginal ( USE polygamous ) 24 . feminin equivalent (sister USE brother)

. person (curator USE curatorship )

. precoordination (paternal parentage USE parentage + father )

. close (hearing of the child USE right of the child to be heard)

. similar meanings (fiançailles / USE promesse de mariage

/ promise of marriage) 25 Systematic display: Rights of aliens CA  concept associé (related concept) Identification number

CS  concept spécifique (narrower concept)

26 FR / EN Systematic display FR / EN

27 garde alternée joint custody (2110)

28 Advantages to combine terminological and documentary aspects  Organisation within a conceptual tree (mind map):

. Is efficient for visualising, structuring, and classifying concepts. . Allows user to understand better the concepts and the relations between them.

 Integration of the added value of terminology that provides more detailed semantic and terminological data. 29 Possible use  Aid to translation (specialised multilingual terminology)  Court / E-justice / IATE

 Aid to documentary research (thesaurus)  Court / E-justice / Eurovoc (Eur-Lex / N-Lex) / National databases

 Aid to understanding texts  Court / E-justice / Eurovoc (Eur-Lex / N-Lex) / National databases

30 An aid to legal translation Multilingual terminological and detailed entry

Time saving

Harmonisation and quality

Comparative Law

31 An aid to legal translation Multilingual terminological and detailed entry

To find the “terms” but also:

. to understand the exact meaning of a concept and the difference between several concepts which are similar (arborescence and other data) . to avoid searching for the difference between several terms which express the same meaning (synonyms) . to use suitable references and to have direct access to multilingual documents (e.g.: EUR- Lex), etc.

32 An aid to research and to translation

33 34 35 An aid to documentary research

Could be used as a controlled vocabulary:

Indexation tool for documentalists Search tool for users . By subject (hierarchical display / systematic display) . By terms that could be combined to do an expert search 36 Top terms under «Right of aliens»

entry into the territory

37 NT1 (NT: Narrower Term)Mind under Map the (test) top term «admission/entry into the territory

entry requirements

38 NT2 under «entry requirements» visa

39 airport transit visa

NT3  NT6 sous «visa»

40 41

Why use this tool (terminology + thesaurus) as an aid to research?

 To formulate precise queries thanks to a combinatory language

 To carry out an intuitive search without necessarily knowing the right vocabulary (arborescence)

42 Why use this tool (terminology + thesaurus) as an aid to research?  Controlled vocabularies are claimed to improve the accuracy of free-text searching, such as to reduce irrelevant items in the retrieval list (noise by the inherent ambiguity of natural language) or to avoid silence.

 To make a query in a text the language of which the user does not master

 To carry out a search in a technical text using one’s own register 43 A thesaurus handles problems of homographs

minor

44 A thesaurus handles problems of FR synonymy mariage fictif OR EN mariage de complaisance marriage of OR convenience mariage blanc OR OR mariage simulé OR OR ? ? 45 A multilingual thesaurus handles problems of language barrier

What about the concept «» (living together as a cohabiting couple) in the Spanish system?

Search for «concubinage» in spanish texts

Concept n° 9

concubinage concubinato unión de hecho union libre

unión libre union de fait 46 concubinage union libre union non- matrimoniale union de fait union hors mariage

unión libre unión no matrimonial concubinato unión paramatrimonial unión de hecho

47 48 49 FR EN

50 FR EN

51 FR EN

52 A multilingual thesaurus handles problems linked to linguistic and / or conceptual developments What about «puissance paternelle» in 2011 in France and Portugal?

Research: «puissance paternelle» … Concept n° 2

EU Cross reference FR: puissance poder responsabilité paternelle paternal responsabilidad parentale e parental patria potestas patria pátrio potestas autoridade autorité poder parental parentale 53 FR PT

54 FR PT

55 56 57 Difficulties…  Delimiting the concept  Establishing equivalence  To what extent can one accept a partial equivalence especially with so many systems?  Drafting terminological definitions  National law and EU law terminology

58 Difficulties… Choice of preferred terms How to limit the concepts to what is «strictly necessary»? Arborescence: reaching a consensus No accurate term for existing concept Target public

Update in such a dynamic field 59 Challenges ahead

 Integration into a database which is not only multilingual but also multi-systems (to what legal system does a term belong?)

 Adaptation of the tool to a public which is not expert in thesaurus

60 Positive points  Comparative multilingual legal terminology available in real-time in CuriaTerm

 Research and legal comparison work is very motivating

 Broader range of skills of colleagues

 Contribution to the interinstitutional cooperation (Eurovoc and IATE) 61 Assessment Multilingual collection of more than 600 concepts

Following a strict methodology and regular meetings

Specialists (legal, translation, terminology, documentary)

Investment in training 62 Assessment

In-depth research in national law and comparative law is essential

Three pivot systems

Fundamental qualities (investment & consensual spirit & open to new technologies)

Suitable IT tool 63

Thank you! [email protected]

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