Contract Language: A Socio-Linguistic Reality Between Intended and Unintended Ambiguities. A Lexical Approach to Interlingual Nominal Ambiguities
Contract Language: A Socio-Linguistic Reality Between Intended and Unintended Ambiguities. A Lexical Approach to Interlingual Nominal Ambiguities

Summary/Abstract: The paper is premised by the idea that the ambiguities that are to be encountered in legal texts, and, more specifically, in contracts, have a double meaning. Aiming at investigating the linguistic ambiguities that are likely to occur in contract language, first, we have to distinguish between intended and unintended ambiguities. By adapting and implementing both qualitative and quantitative methods, we further propose an applied analysis of linguistic ambiguities that are likely to occur in English-Romanian bilingual contracts. In this respect, the present paper underpins a systematic investigation regarding the occurrence of interlingual nominal ambiguities, which may arise during the translation process. Thus, we shall focus on aspects of legal synonymy and polysemy, being mainly interested in the analysis of those particular instances of lexical ambiguity characterizing legal terminology, i.e. archaic words, loans, technical terms and common words with uncommon meanings, highlighting the controlling factors. A systematic assessment of our findings will reveal a contrastive approach to the occurrence of lexical interlingual ambiguities in terms of translation procedures.

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