WITHIN THE PERIOD TO MEET THE DEADLINE: CZECH NEAR-SYNONYMS DOBA AND LHŮTA AND THEIR ENGLISH EQUIVALENTS
PDF

Keywords

temporal expressions
collocational profile
legal translation
interlingual equivalence

How to Cite

KLABAL, O. (2017). WITHIN THE PERIOD TO MEET THE DEADLINE: CZECH NEAR-SYNONYMS DOBA AND LHŮTA AND THEIR ENGLISH EQUIVALENTS. Comparative Legilinguistics, 27, 49–72. https://doi.org/10.14746/cl.2016.27.4

Abstract

The Czech Civil Code has recently introduced differentiation between two terms denoting a period of time: lhůta and doba. Both of these terms are used, often interchangeably, in ordinary Czech language and are thus susceptible to failure by translators to be recognized as terms. It is believed that the definitions provided by the draftsmen of the said code do not describe the difference in meaning sufficiently for non-lawyers to understand (cf. Goźdź-Roszkowski, 2013: 100). Therefore, this paper aims at describing the difference in meaning of these terms on the basis of a qualitative analysis of their collocational patterns and collocational profile, as used in the wording of the said law. The second part of the paper consists of an analysis of potential English equivalents (time limit, period, deadline, time) and their collocates as used in legislation drafted in English. The analysis is based on a corpus compiled of the Czech Civil Code and a comparable corpus of civil legislation drafted in English. The findings of the analysis will outline the strategies available to translators dealing with temporal expressions at the Czech-English interface.

https://doi.org/10.14746/cl.2016.27.4
PDF

References

Adams, Kenneth A. 2013. A Manual of style for Contract Drafting. American Bar Association

Bhatia, Vijay K, Nicola Langton, & Jane Lung. 2004. Legal Discourse: Opportunities and threats for corpus linguistics. In: Discourse in the Professions – A Corpus Linguistics Approach, edited by Ulla Connor and Thomas Upton. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Co, pp. 203-231

Chromá, Marta. 2010. Česko-anglický právnický slovník. 3. vyd. Voznice: Leda

Chromá, Marta. 2011. Synonymy and Polysemy in Legal Terminology and Their Applications to Bilingual and Bijural Translation. Research in Language 9 (1): pp. 31-50

Chromá, Marta. 2014a. “The new Czech Civil Code – lessons from legal translation – a case-study analysis.” In: The Ashgate Handbook of Legal Translation, edited by Le Cheng, King Kui Sin and Anne Wagner, Farnham: Ashgate, pp. 263-299

Chromá, Marta. 2014b. Právní překlad v teorii a praxi. Praha: Karolinum

Elischer, David, Frinta, Ondrej. Pauknerová, Monika, 2013. Recodification of Private Law in the Czech Republic. In: The Scope and Structure of Civil Codes edited by Julio César Rivera. Dordrecht: Springer, pp. 105-132

Explanatory Memorandum to the Czech Civil Code. 2013. Available from http://obcanskyzakonik.justice.cz/index.php/home/zakony-a-stanoviska/texty-zakonu

Garner, Bryan A., Henry Campbell Black, a Ian Sumner. 2009. Black’s Law Dictionary. 9. wyd. St. Paul: West

Goźdź-Roszkowski, Stanisław. 2013. Exploring near-synonymous terms in legal language. A corpus-based phraseological perspective. In: Lingustica Anverpiensia New Series - Themes in Translation Studies, 13. pp. 94-109

Klabal, Ondřej, a Michal Kubánek. 2013. Plain or Archaic: The New Czech Civil Code Going against the Flow. [in:] Comparative Legilinguistics 12, pp. 9-19

Matulewska, Aleksandra. 2007. Lingua Legis in Translation. Frankfurt: Peter Lang

Riley, Alison. 1995. The Meaning of Words in English Legal Texts: Mastering the Vocabulary of the Law – A Legal Task. Law Teacher 29–30, 68–83

Tiersma, Peter M. 1999. Legal language. 2nd edition Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press