Legal Translation Dictionaries: Will They Soon Be a Thing of the Past? Cover Image

Překladové právnické slovníky: budou brzy minulostí?
Legal Translation Dictionaries: Will They Soon Be a Thing of the Past?

Author(s): Tomáš Duběda
Subject(s): Information Architecture, Theoretical Linguistics, Applied Linguistics, Lexis, Philology, Translation Studies, EU-Legislation, Commercial Law
Published by: Univerzita Karlova v Praze - Filozofická fakulta, Vydavatelství
Keywords: translation dictionary; specialised lexicography; electronic lexicography; terminology; legal translation

Summary/Abstract: The role of bilingual and multilingual legal dictionaries in translation and legal communication is changing as the availability of various online resources increases. It turns out that most legal dictionaries published in the EU do not meet the standards of an ideal legal dictionary, in which linguistic data are supplemented with relevant law-related information. Furthermore, there is a strong disparity in terms of availability between dictionaries of major European languages and those of languages of limited diffusion. In the Czech context, bibliographic data indicate that a massive wave of legal lexicographic activity culminated around the year 2000. Since then, the trend has been dropping sharply. The authorship of the dictionaries, among which major European languages and Latin predominate, is almost exclusively in the hands of Czech authors. The decline of paper dictionaries does not seem to be fully compensated by online dictionaries for the time being. Yet the potential of electronic platforms for legal lexicography is considerable in terms of capacity, userfriendliness, accessibility and sustainability.

  • Issue Year: 106/2024
  • Issue No: 2
  • Page Range: 179-192
  • Page Count: 14
  • Language: Czech
Toggle Accessibility Mode