ABSTRAKT
A Discourse Analysis of Translated Texts Published within the European Union |
Xxxxx Xxxxxx |
Bachelor's thesis 2018 |
ABSTRAKT
Cílem této bakalářské práce je provedení diskurzivní analýzy právních dokumentů a verzí jejich překladů, na jejichž základě je založena celá Evropská unie. Pro účely zkoumání byly vybrány tři zakládající smlouvy v původním anglickém znění s jejich oficiálními verzemi českého překladu, u nichž je časový rozestup minimálně patnáct let. Metodou diskurzivní analýzy je zkoumáno, zda tento časový rozestup má nějaký vliv na právní jazyk a přeložené verze těchto smluv, či nikoli. Teoretická část práce se věnuje problematice diskurzivní analýzy, právního jazyka a specifik samotné Evropské unie. V praktické části byla provedena diskurzivní analýza vybraných smluv z pohledu lexikologického, gramatického a diskurzu. Závěr práce hodnotí a komentuje výsledky provedené analýzy.
Klíčová slova: diskurzivní analýza, právní jazyk, překlad, Evropská unie, eurožargon,
ABSTRACT
This bachelor thesis aims to process a discourse analysis of legal documents and its Czech translated works on which basis was founded the whole European Union. For the analysis have been chosen three founding treaties in the original English versions with their official versions of Czech translations. Documents have been selected concerning the time span which is at least fifteen years between each of them. The discourse analysis investigated whether this time span had some effect on legal language and translated versions of these agreements or not. The theoretical part of the thesis deals with the issue of the discourse analysis, the legal language and the specifics of the European Union itself. In the practical part has been done a discourse analysis of selected treaties from the point of view of lexicology, grammar, and discourse. The conclusion of the thesis evaluates and comments on the results of the analysis.
Keywords: discourse analysis, legal language, translation, European Union, Eurojargon
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to express my gratitude to my supervisor Xxx. Xxxx Xxxxxxx. This thesis would have never been accomplished without her assistance and valuable comments.
I hereby declare that the print version of my Bachelor's thesis and the electronic version of my thesis deposited in the IS/STAG system are identical.
CONTENTS
8
10
11
12
1.1 FORMS OF DISCOURSE ANALYSIS 12
1.2 LEVELS OF TEXT ANALYSIS 13
17
2.2.1 Difficulties in Legal Translation 19
2.3 LINGUISTICS FEATURES OF LEGAL LANGUAGE 20
2.3.1.1 Foreign Terminology 20
2.3.2.1 Text-structuring patterns 22
2.3.2.2 Passive construction 22
3 THE ROLE OF THE TRANSLATION IN THE EU
24
3.3 INSTITUTIONS TRANSLATING FOR THE EU 27
29
30
4.1 TREATY ESTABLISHING THE EUROPEAN COAL AND STEEL
4.2 TREATY ON EUROPEAN UNION 31
4.3 TREATY ON THE FUNCTIONING OF THE EUROPEAN UNION 32
34
5.1.1 Structure of the documents 34
5.1.2 The most frequent vocabulary 35
5.1.5 Foreign and archaic terminology 38
5.2.1 Length and Structure of Sentences 41
5.2.1.2 The Sentence Structure 43
5.2.2 Text-structuring patterns 44
54
57
63
64
65
INTRODUCTION
The European Union is quite a new concept in the past few years, and it brings us a discovery of new affairs and issues. It brings up new matters both from the legal and linguistic points of view. The European Union was officially founded in 1993. However, the process of its building goes deeper into the past. It is founded on the basis of the European Coal and Steel Community (1951) and the European Economic Community (1958). Legal documents that were published during the years of the ECSC and EEC are pivotal for the entire European Union, and they have put the European Union at the level as it is today. (Xxxxxx 2010,81). This bachelor thesis is analysing three of the most essential and fundamental founding treaties of the EU in English versions as well as versions of official Czech translations. The primary criterion for the selection of the documents was the difference in years of their publication. Between each of the study material is at least fifteen years gap in the years of their publication. The purpose of this bachelor thesis is to examine whether these gaps affected the language of the documents or not and whether there is a visible impact on the
translation into Czech.
The thesis is divided into two parts. The theoretical part is dealing with an introduction to the discourse analysis with subchapters presenting levels of language later examined in the practical section. The second chapter specifies legal language with its typical features and discusses difficulties arising with the translation of legal texts. Last part is getting to the core topic which is the EU. It contains explanation and discussion of Eurojargon and the policy of multilingualism. In conclusion are presenting institutions ensuring translation services.
The practical part consists of the discourse analysis itself. The discourse analysis is being done from levels of lexicology, grammar, and discourse. The first part of the analysis consists of an introduction of selected documents and the explanation of their purposes and contributions to the EU. After an introduction follows the lexical part which is analysing the texts from the point of vocabulary with a section focused on Eurojargon and its effect on Czech translation. Grammatical part is dealing with specifics of the legal language on analysed documents. The last part uses Xxxxxxxx and Xxxxx´s cohesive devices to discover whether the texts are coherent and cohesive and what cohesive devices are used the most in legal documents. In conclusion, are being evaluated all data and it is commented whether predetermined assumptions have been confirmed or refuted.
I. |
1 DISCOURSE ANALYSIS
At first glance, it may seem that the discourse analysis is just a study of language, however, according to Xxxxx, “discourse analysis is not just the study of language, but a way of looking at language that focuses on how people use it in real life to do things like joke and argue and persuade and flirt, and to show that they are certain kinds of people or belong to certain groups” (2012, 2). However, before the whole concept of discourse analysis is presented, there should be explained some terms preceding the understanding of discourse analysis itself.
First of all, should be mentioned what the discourse is. Discourse does not have a fixed definition, and it can be viewed from more than one perspectives, for instance from the philosophical as well as from the linguistic point of view. However, speaking of discourse, regarding linguistics, it may be interpreted as: "the meaning that a first person intends to express in producing text, and that a second person interprets from the text" (Xxxxxxxxx 2007, 129). From previous definitions, it is clear that the centre of discourse analysis is language. Language is according to the Oxford Dictionary “the method of human communication, either spoken or written, consisting of the use of words in a structured and conventional way” (2010). While doing a discourse analysis, there has to be the assumption that language is ambiguous, always in the world, is never used all by itself and that the way we use language is inseparable from every individual. It follows that there has to be an awareness that the language has to be enacted in some context (Xxxxx 2012, 2).
After having all the essential definitions explained, the discourse analysis may be interpreted as an explanation of how people use language in the text or speech in respect to the context of the given text or speech. Following, that there has to be an awareness of both linguistic factors and extra-linguistic factors within the analysed text. These factors later need to be identified, and there has to be found a relationship between them. (Xxxxxx and Xxxxx 2017, 330).
1.1 Forms of Discourse Analysis
Gee divides discourse analysis into two forms often divided into: descriptive and critical (2014, 8). In this thesis are being done both of them. Descriptive one is primarily focused on technical implementation, and it is analysing and describing linguistic data. According to Xxxx, descriptive discourse analysis gives information about how a given language works in order to understand it well, meaning that grammar plays here a considerable role, as does vocabulary (1998, 23).
The word descriptive also gives a hint that there is a focus on what is present in the particular situation rather than what it should be. It follows that there has to be an awareness that someone has commented on something that has been already done (Xxxxx and Xxxx 1998, 23).
On the other hand, the critical discourse analysis takes into account not only how the language works but also other aspects. There is more significant concentration on the context, internal structure within the society, historical background. It is trying to look into the problematics of the text from the critical and theoretical point of view (Xxxxx and Xxxxx 2016, 1). Critical discourse analysis is being done preferably in the case of political discourse or some historical events (Xxxxxxxxxx and Fairclough 2012, 1).
For doing an analysis focused on linguistics theory is more convenient to do the descriptive one. It is because the linguistic one is more about collecting the data and moving forward with these new data, rather than developing and arguing new theories as it happens while doing the critical one (Xxxxxx and Xxxxx 2006, 4). However, in this bachelor thesis is the analysis looking to the texts also from the historical point of view and there are commented issues which affected the given result. It follows that this work is not just about collecting data, but it also discusses on some historical aspects which are commented in following chapters.
1.2 Levels of Text Analysis
There is no single discourse analysis. Instead, there are varieties of discourse analyses, and they change across the disciplines (Gee 2014, 1). From the point of view of the text linguistics analysis it deals especially with language. Study of texts are being done from the perspective of Phonetics, Graphology, Grammar, Stylistics, Lexicology Pragmatics and Discourse analysis (Xxxxxxx and Xxxx 1969, 85). However, it depends on the type of discourse. For the usage of this analysis of legal texts, there is paid attention mainly to Grammar, Lexicology, and Discourse. These three levels of language are analysed in the practical part of this thesis.
Grammar is one of the most important aspects of text analysis, and in fact, more than one- third of literature on the theme of text analyses is targeted to grammatical elements. Grammatical part examines language from Morphology and Syntax. Morphology is dealing with smallest units of the text - morphemes, and it studies the structure of words, their
classification and grammatical modification in given language (Xxxxxxx 2000, 19). Morphology is tightly connected to syntax, and some publications denote them together as morphosyntax. However, syntax is dealing with a more extensive unit than a word which is a sentence.
Syntax is defined as “the study of the order and arrangement of words into larger units, as well as the relationships holding between elements in these hierarchical units” (Xxxxxxx 2000, 11). Every language has a different grammar structure and rules, and all of these phenomena are studied by syntax. As it is denoted in chapter two, syntax is essential for the usage of the analysis of legal texts.
Lexicology is a study of words both in written and spoken forms and it consists of syntactic and morphological properties. It follows that it studies properties of words from the point of view of grammar and meaning, the history of words, as well as their changes through the time and the occurrence of new words (Hall, Xxxxx and Xxxxxxxxx 2011, 249). Lexicology is considered as fundamental part of the analysis because the prior goal of this analysis is to analyse the terminology appearing only in the EU corpus. The corpus of the EU is relatively young, and many words were until the foundation of this institution unknown. Concerning the translation, terminology and hence lexicology is as well the most crucial concept because translated terminology needs to convey the same meaning in all languages into which is the translation made.
Examining discourse analysis as a level of language, it studies “the meaning of language in context” (Xxxxxxx 2004, 5). It is following that this level of language concerns the text beyond the level of a sentence. The main unit which needs to be examined in this analysis is text which is according to Xxxxxxxxx “actual use of language (2007, 4).
The quality that makes the text a text is texture which makes a text as a unified unity and it deals with semantic interdependence within the text (Xxxxxxxx and Xxxxx 1976, 2). Studying the textuality, the main criteria which needs to be examined are cohesion and coherence of the text. Xxxxxxxx Xxxxxxxx and Xxxxx define as a “semantic relation between one element in the text and some other element that is crucial for its interpretation” (1976, 9). Cohesion and its devices have been studied by many scholars and there are various approaches and different cohesive devices, however, for the purpose of this analysis have been taken the Xxxxxxxx and Xxxxx'x approach. They mention five types of cohesion:
reference, substitution, ellipsis, conjunction and lexical cohesion (1976, 13). In the practical part of this thesis are texts being examined in terms of reference, substitution and, conjunction.
The cohesive devices affect the coherence which is according to Xxxxxxxxx defined as “the interpretation of a text so that it makes sense” (2007, 127). Meaning that there has to be a logical connection within the text and the text should be meaningful to a reader. This is also an important characteristic of legal texts because there is need to be text interpreted correctly. Besides cohesion and coherence, texts may be analysed also from additional criteria like “intertextuality, situationality, informativity, acceptability or intentionality” (Shurma 2018), however, as it has been already mentioned, for the legal language and its translation are the most useful the terms of cohesion and coherence. Subchapters listed below are presenting Xxxxxxxx and Xxxxx'x cohesive devices, used in the practical part (1976, 13).
As Xxxxxx states, “reference refers to how the writer introduces participants and then keep track of them once they are in the text” (2004, 33). She states three basic types of references: a homophoric reference which is reference deriving from the context of culture, exophoric reference defined as reference derived from the immediate context of the situation and endophoric reference which is being used in this text analysis. The endophoric one may be further divided into anaphoric, cataphoric and esophoric types of references (Eggins 2004, 34). Anaphora is referring to something that has already been mention before in text. Cataphora is the opposite of anaphora, and it relates to something that comes later in the text (Xxxxxxxxx 2007, 127). Esophoric reference occurs immediately within the phrase, following the presuming referent item (Eggins 2004, 35). However, Xxxxxxxx and Xxxxx point out that for the primary purpose of cohesion is the most relevant the anaphoric one (1976, 51).
Speaking of types of reference there are four main types of references: personal pronouns (I, me, she, his, her etc.), demonstrative (this, these, here, that, those, there), comparatives (another, other, similar, better) and the definite article (the) (Xxxxxxxx and Xxxxx 1976, 55).
Substitution serves to avoid frequent repetition of lexical items. However, the substitute part needs to have the same structural function. Xxxxx and Bloor state three types of substitutions: nominal, verbal and clausal (2013, 97). Nominal type substitutes noun, and it is being
expressed by indefinite pronouns one, ones and same. Verbal type substitutes verb and its expression are being done help to the substitutes do, often with the words so, it or that. In clausal substitution is being replaced the whole phrase (Bloor and Bloor 2013, 98).
Regarding the cohesive device is defined as something that systematically connects the clauses which are resources for making a transition in developing the text. Conjunctive elements are cohesive indirectly “by virtue of their specific meaning” (Xxxxxxxx and Xxxxx 1976, 226). Xxxxxxxx and Xxxxx introduced the scheme of four categories in which may be conjunction classified (1976, 238). They are additive, adversative, causal and temporal (Xxxxxxxx and Xxxxx 1976, 238). Additive conjunctions link textual elements by adding or negate a previous item as, e.g., and, additionally, too, furthermore, also, nor, either, neither. Adversative ones, signal an opposite to expectation like, for instance, yet, though, only, but, in fact, etc. Causal express the reason, purpose or result, e.g., so, then, for, because, for this reason, as a result, in respect, etc. Temporal conjunction has its connection with time: then, next day, until then, at the same time, at this point, etc. (Xxxxxxxx and Xxxxx 1976, 238-40).
2 LEGAL LINGUISTICS
Prior to describing the role of the European Union, an introduction to the legal linguistics is crucial for the understanding of legal documents and their translations. The term legal linguistics is used, for instance, by Xxxxxxx (2003), Sauer (1992) and Xxxxxx (1999), however, it is also known as forensic linguistics. Legal language may also be studied from the philosophical point of view where it is known under the term Hermeneutics (Večeřa et al. 2011, 177). However, legal linguistics is a branch of linguistics applying knowledge of linguistics in the context of law, legal systems, and principles of legal language (Hall, Xxxxx and Xxxxxxxxx 2011, 303). The basic principles and rules listed below, deal with legal language and the translation of legal texts, also applied to texts published within the European Union. The knowledge of these principles and rules is fundamental to understand the whole concept.
2.1 Legal Language
This chapter analyses legal language from the technical and theoretical point of view. As far as legal language is concerned, there is term ambiguity, because various spheres are dealing with the issue of legal language (Hlouch 2011, 45). However, most important for legal language are linguistics and legal theory (Xxxxxxx 2003, 26).
The language and the law are two closely connected phenomena because the law may be expressed only through language (Cao 2007, 15). Thus, legal language may be considered as a language of legal communication, the purpose of which is to convey legal information (Xxxxxxx 2003, 23). There has to be an awareness that the target group is both professionals and lay public. Authors and translators should be aware of the fact that the written (translated) text is not targeted only to professionals, but also to ordinary people without further education and it should be written (translated) in the way to be understandable and interpretable for both (Cao 2007, 122). However, it is not always right and there are very often expressions with a complex significance which have to be later specified in judicial decisions. Xxxxxxx is aware of this problem and therefore mentions that requirements on legal language should be stringent and lists that the demands on legal language are: “accuracy of meaning, explicitness, briefness, comprehensibility, stability, orderliness, enforceability and non-expressivity” (2003, 28, translated author of the thesis).
2.2 Legal Translation
The translation may be defined as a shift of the text from one language (source language) into another (target language) (Xxxxxx 2001, 5). As far as legal translation is concerned, it is one of the branches of translational activity called technical translation. It has to focus on linguistic, legal and translation theory. Translation needs to involve particular language for a specific purpose, used in the context of law. The legal language can be analysed both in oral and written form, but as far as the subject of this bachelor thesis is concerned, the texts are being discussed only in their written form.
Xxx divides legal texts into four major areas:
a) Legislative texts – it is about the law which is made by law-making authorities, such as domestic statues, international treaties, multilingual laws, etc.
b) Judicial texts – they are produced in judicial process by legal authorities
c) Legal scholarly texts
d) Private legal texts – such as contracts, leases, etc. wrote by lawyers (Cao 2007, 9). Each of them is characterized by specific features. For this thesis, this thesis is essential to mention legislative ones which convey various communicative purposes, concretely normative ones. A basic unit of the normative texts is the norm. From the legal point of view may be the norm classified as a rule of conduct (Hlouch 2011, 51). A primary function of the normative language lies in a society which guides human behaviour and regulates human relations (Xxx 2007, 10). From the previous sentences may be deduced that the norm says what the law permits, and what it prohibits. The acts that come from the law-making process are called normative legal acts. Normative legal acts are, for instance, official written documents (statutes) and other legal regulations such as multilingual documents which are results of legislative activity of a public authority containing the legal rule. This law-making process is a determinative source of law in continental legal culture, i.e., also in the EU (Xxxxxxxx et al. 2008, 97).
There are three subcategorizations of legal translation according to their purpose, and normative is one of them. Normative purpose refers to the generating of legal texts with equal legal force in bilingual or multilingual jurisdictions of domestic laws and international laws (Xxxxxxxx 1997, 20). Speaking of bilingual or multilingual texts (as it is in the case of the EU), they are first drafted in one language and then translated into a target language, or they may be written simultaneously in given languages. Texts coming from this process of translation have an equal legal force, and there is not any superiority among them based on
original status (Xxx 2007, 10). Applying this process to the EU, the texts are usually drafted first in English or French and then translated into rest of the 24 official languages. Then all of them have equal legal force.
2.2.1 Difficulties in Legal Translation
According to Xxx the sources of difficulties in translation are mainly in systemic, linguistic and cultural differences. There is no need to analyse the systemic discrepancies in this bachelor thesis because all countries within the EU belong to the system of Continental Law (2007, 23).
What is being discussed in detail is a problem of cultural difficulties. These kinds of problems happen because each state has different cultural, social and linguistics background and even if the EU is trying to converge the legal systems of its countries as much as possible, there are still gaps in this process and differences in every single legal system (Xxxxxxxxx 2003, 5). It follows that there are differences in legal norms as well and that law differs in every single society. Thanks to all of these differences, the EU is called a hybrid of mixed jurisdiction (Biel 2014, 52). The culture translation is not just a transfer from one language into another; it is a process of translation from one legal system into another (Biel 2014, 49).
As difficulties for translators also have to be mentioned. Translators face a difficult task in their career. They have first to decode the source text which is not possible without knowing both source and target legal systems and then re-decode the text and translate it in a way to fulfil the function in the target culture (Nida and Taber 1974, 21). Even though they are professionals in the field of linguistics, the legal translation process happens between both language and law. When it comes to the process of translation, they have to realize that these two disciplines that are at the same level. In addition to these two disciplines, the law is connected to other disciplines (e.g., business, economy, etc.) as well, following that they need to have a wide range of knowledge to recognize all aspects (Xxxxxxx 2002, 45).
However, not only the culture may arise a problem, but it may also be the interpretation of the text. Xxxxxxx divides translation into intralingual and interlingual translation. Intralingual means translation within the same language, which is the interpretation of a given text. Interlingual translation is a translation from one language into another (2003, 18). For a translation to be correct, there is a need to apply both interlingual and interlingual methods to a translation, because, without a proper understanding of the source text, there is no possibility to produce a correct translation. Means that a translator should be able to create a text which is easy to understand regarding words, as well as, convey the ideas of the text.
In the end, the translated text needs to carry the same meaning as the original text (Nida and Taber 1974, 21).
2.3 Linguistics Features of Legal Language
Legal language has specific linguistic features which need to fulfil the requirements of the law. These features are appearing mainly on the level of lexicology and syntax. Particular features in lexicology and syntax are demonstrated in following subchapters.
The legal lexicon is full of archaic words and common words with uncommon meanings (Cao 2007, 21). As far as concerning vocabulary with respect to international instruments, it is essential to know the significance of words when it comes to legal context. The primary distinguishing feature of legal language is terminology, including technical terms borrowed both from ordinary language and foreign languages. Another requirement is the requirement of synonyms, whose occurrence should be kept to a minimum because technical language should be as accurate as possible and there should not be any doubt about the intended meaning (Hlouch 2011, 68). Unlike general language, in legal language is not possible to find interjections nor emotionally coloured words (Xxxxxxx 2003, 47).
There are plenty of words borrowed from French and Latin (Bázlik and Xxxxxx 2009, 17). The law is tightly connected with Latin and French, because of the historical background. There is a close connection, especially with Latin. In the language of law are many Latin expressions which usually are not being even translated and stands in their original form. However, the decision whether to translate or not depends on situation and purpose of the text. For instance, in most of the normative acts are Latin collocations remain in their original form and they are not translated both in English and Czech languages. On the other hand, in Judgments of the Court, when it comes to interpretation of the law, some of the original English versions contain untranslated Latin expression and in the Czech version has this term translated.
As far as concern judicial decisions, they are not normative acts, and they belong to the category of individual legal acts. They are not primary sources of law as the normative ones and their purpose is to apply normative legal acts to individual cases (Xxxxxxx 2013, 74– 77). In the English language are Latin expressions more prevailed than in the Czech language which could be caused by their linguistics history (Xxxxx and Sours 2014, 58).
Analysing the relationship between English and Latin, the frequent usage of Latin words in English legal texts has been found. As Bázlik and Xxxxxx mention, “It is a well-known fact that many English words exist in pairs, of which one is Germanic and the other of Latin origin, e.g., Work – labour, car – automobile, etc.” (Bázlik and Xxxxxx 2010). Speaking of Czech and Latin, there are also some words which were borrowed from Latin and found a place in our national corpus. However, their use is not so frequent as in English.Archaic Words.
Another specific feature of legal language is the use of archaic words both in English and Czech legal languages. Most frequent archaic words in legal English are, e.g., hereinafter, heretofore darraign or aforesaid (Xxxxxxxx 2007, 32). Czech equivalents of these words are considered as archaisms in Czech environment as well, and their usage in legal language is frequent. They are being translated as níže, doposud, drahý or výše uveden. Whether the occurrence of archaic words is visible within the texts published by the EU, is analysed in the practical part of this thesis.
Last lexical particularity is the issue of terminology. In legal language, there is a strict requirement for the use of correct terms, and technical terms and they are being unified into separate semantic units. Many terms have in statutes fixed definition, suggesting that they tend to have a monosemic meaning and only one denotation (Bajčić 2017, 11). From the previous sentence may be deduced that in legal language is not a high occurrence of synonyms. In fact, there is an effort to eliminate them to the minimum (Tiersma 2000, 113).
Corpus of the EU consists of rigid terminology as well. Together with a translation into all of the official languages is the EU trying to avoid ambiguity and misinterpretation. Unfortunately, such definitions do not exist for all the terms in the EU and then appeals the problem both with translating and interpreting. For the unification and better understanding of terminology within the EU have been created the internet portal EUR-Lex where are published all legal documents issued within the EU in all languages into which were translated (1998-2018).
It is clear that the introduction of terminology enhances clarity and the austerity of the text. However, there arise questions whether it is possible to translate the law and whether it is possible to achieve the equivalence in legal translation (Xxx 2007, 32). It is because all terms do not have to correspond with specific legal definition, mainly because of cultural differences. It is also affected by differences in legal systems where many of the legal terms
in one language do not correspond to terms in another, and this problem of non-equivalence is a major source of difficulty in translation (Mac Aodha 2014, 147). However, these “untranslatable” have to transfer to the target language as well, meaning that there has to be discovered some relationship between the source language and target language to translate the term correctly.
The primary syntactic feature of legal language is the composition of long sentences and a massive number of coordinate and subordinate clauses (Xxxxxxxx 1990, 70). Besides these main characteristics of legal sentences, there are also some distinctive features at this level of language which are demonstrated in following subchapters.
2.3.2.1 Text-structuring patterns
Language patterns are combinations of words or a whole sentence, entering the legal discourse as constructively completed. Their typical feature is steadiness and consistency that should facilitate reception and refine the pragmatic component of the communication (Xxxxxxx 2003, 52). Language templates form certain units of expression and their function can be marked also as a code (Xxxxxx and Cacciaguidi-Xxxx 2006, 371). Table 1 shows a couple of examples of this text-structuring pattern both in CZ and EN versions. These templates are further discussed also in the theoretical part of this thesis.
Czech | English |
… v souladu s řádným legislativním postupem … | … Acting in accordance with the ordinary legislative procedure … |
… s ohledem na návrh Evropské komise … | … Having regard to the proposal from the European Commission … |
Table 1: Text-structuring patterns
According to Xxxxxxx, the legal language is overwhelmed with passives (2000, 75). The principle of the passive voice in language is in the omission of the agent (Xxxxxxx and Xxxxxxxxxx 2017, 24). Passives are used in legal language mainly because of generalization and non-personalization of the legal text (Lock 1996, 237). Deagentization can also decrease the understandability of written text. Examples of passive voice are being demonstrated in the practical part of this thesis..
The occurrence of modal verbs in legal texts is very frequent. In oppose to passives, modal verbs are characteristic only for the English language. In the Czech language does not fulfil the same function as in English. The modal verbs shall and may have a higher occurrence. However, it is essential to know that their appearance and meaning is not the same as in non- legal use (Bázlik and Xxxxxx 2009, 62). It may be predictable that for expressing the obligation is used the modal verb must. However, in legal English is for this purpose used modal verb shall. The modal verbs may may not express obligation in English and in addition, in legal English may serve as an expression of permission or prohibition (Xxxxxxxx 1997, 139). The modal verb must is not entirely excluded and can serve as a synonym to shall. However, its usage is kept to a minimum (Bázlik and Xxxxxx 2009, 62).
For comparison, in Czech legal texts, obligations are expressed by the verb muset whose literate equivalent is actually must, so that for a Czech speaker this English phenomenon could be a little bit confusing.
3 THE ROLE OF THE TRANSLATION IN THE EU
According to Xxxxxxx Xxx'x statement, “The language of Europe is translation” (BP Translation Conference 2018), and it is the translation which is an indispensable part of the EU and without its functioning which would not be possible. From the theory of state point of view, the EU does not have a set form of state. The professional literature mentions that it is something between a federation and a confederation (Blanke and Mangiameli 2006, 362), however, thanks to continuous and deepening integration, it could be said that it is getting closer to fulfil a concept of a federation. In comparison to other federations, the EU lacks one of the basic elements which is a common language (Blankart and Xxxxxxx 2004, 239). However, the EU is proud of its diversity in languages, and it represents itself with the motto “United in diversity” (Salgó 2017, 81). This moto highlights the uniqueness of this institution and subscribes the fact that each country of the EU has its tradition, culture, language and social values and yet each of them shares common values such as a democracy, freedom, respect for human rights, etc. that need to be approved and respected (European Union 2017, 8).
3.1 Multilingualism
The current number of member states of the EU is 28, and the number of official languages is 24 (Xxxxxx and Xxxxxxxxxx 2018, 29). However, there are also some cases when it operates in regional languages, as well as, in some of the world languages such as Chinese or Russian (Xxxxxxxx 2016, 58).
The EU language policy focuses on the protection of linguistic diversity and promotes the knowledge of languages in the interests of cultural identity and social integration. Every citizen of a member state is simultaneously a citizen of the EU, and as the legislation states, every citizen of the EU has the right to communicate in his national language (Xxxxxx, Xxxx and Xxxxxxxx 2014). It is the reason why multilingualism is one of the most important policies of the EU. Multilingualism is also enshrined to the primary legislation of the EU, concretely in the Article 55 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (2008) and the Articles 2, 24 and 314 of the Treaty on European Union (1992). The EU is a focal point where several different languages come into contact on a daily basis, and the language becomes an everyday indispensable policy tool. As stated in Article 22 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (2010) “The Union shall respect linguistic diversity.” This statement embodies the principle that all official languages of the EU have the same status, therefore, all versions are identical, and they must be interpreted and applied
identically. The legislative documents have to be translated into all 24 official languages, and all of them have equal legal status (Marácz and Xxxxxxx 2012, 147). It makes up together 552 possible pairs, which is both time-consuming and financially demanding. In fact, there is no other institution using so many official languages at a regional or world level (Unger et al. 2014, 105).
The definition of multilingualism is set in the New Framework Strategy for multilingualism (2006), stating that multilingualism “refers to both a person’s ability to use several languages and the co-existence of different language communities in one geographical area” (Commission of the European Communities. 2005). As it has been already mentioned, the policy of multilingualism has a fatal role within this institution, and it has three main aims:
1. “encourage language learning and promote linguistic diversity in society;
2. promote a multilingual economy;
3. to give citizens access to EU information in their own languages” (Xxxxx and Braid 2014, 16).
As far as the equity of all translated texts is concerned, it is being stated that it is just one of the fiction (Kontra 1999, 37). The reason is that of different semantic structure in each language, and these diverse languages can hardly be completely identical. Specific terms may have a slightly shifted meaning, there are no equivalents in another language, or there is a different cultural background as it was discussed in the previous chapter. These differences lead to questions of interpretation the European law published in various language versions and presuppositions of a unified text (Xxxxxxxx 2014, 18). In this case, it would be possible to take into account a debate of choosing the only language version (Marvan 2008, 13) and at the same time fulfil the concept of federation. However, the preference of the language version would be unlawful, and the principle of the equality would be violated.
3.2 Euro English
The fact that original documents are created in a multilingual environment has its consequences. Concerning such a huge multilingual institution, it is a necessity to express new terms which have the same meaning in all official languages. The implications of these new terms in this multilingual environment is a creation of Eurospeak or so-called Eurojargon. Eurospeak is defined as “Jargon used in the documents, statements, etc., of the European Union or its predecessors” (English Oxford Living Dictionaries 2018).
The Eurojargon is being applied mostly to the documents drafted in English because English owns unequivocally status of a monopole language of the EU. Despite the fact, that English was not the language of foundation agreements and despite Brexit, nowadays is English considered as a Lingua Franca of the EU (Guido 2008, 239). The reason why the most Europeans speak English is the fact that most people learn English as their first foreign language, English serves as a communication tool at universities, and it is spread worldwide on the internet and social media (Richards 2015, 4-10).The national governments of France, Germany, Italy, and Spain, are trying to prevent the massive spread of English language by national education policies. However, the importance of English as a European communication language is so vast that the public is still supporting the position of English as lingua franca (Xxxxx 2008, 239). Because all languages and therefore the texts have equal status, there is an occurrence of Eurojargon, and it leads to the creation of "hybrid" texts. Hybrids are something like a compromise between various true cultures coming into being as a result of negotiation, and there can be found features of the source as well as a target language (Biel 2014, 53).
Languages of the EU are divided into official languages and working languages. Working languages are considered to be French, German and English (Durmaz 2007, 44). Working languages are used in the EU on a day-to-day basis, and their purpose is to communicate in one common language. This is due to financial reasons because not all documents are translated into all languages, therefore, they save the EU money and time. The example when the working language saves time and money can be demonstrated on initiatives from citizens when, for instance, a Czech citizen lodges a complaint on a subject of the functioning of Czech representatives in the EU parliament. This complaint fulfils all official requirements, and it has to be translated into one of the working languages (mostly English) and postponed to the authorities in the EU. However, this initiative does not have to be translated into all official languages, because there is no need to inform all citizens of the EU, that one citizen of the CR does not like its authorities in EU parliament (Xxxxx 2018). Another usage of working languages is in daily discussions and meetings attended by representatives of all states which has to be run in one of the working languages. These sessions need to be recorded word-by-word, and there is no possibility that, for instance, the Czech member of an EU parliament has the level of English as a native speaker, so the recorded document has the same nature as the hybrid document. However, these hybrid texts are edited by editors whose task is to correct the language accuracy and formality for easier translation into all official languages (Xxxxx 2018).
There is an attempt to create uniform "European" terms, easily translatable with the character of a formality because the English spoken within the EU is not as Mr. Xxxxx (2018) calls it "Bronx English" (Xxxxx 2018). However, it is Euro English which should have its specifics as for any other English dialect. There have already been published dictionaries of Eurojargon, and the EU owns databases with its terminology. However, no rigid rules have been set yet, and the databases are still being renewed because new terminology appears every day.
Eurojargon is mostly criticized, and the new terminology is often being denoted as non- understandable. For instance, according to Xxxxx Xxxx, member of the European Parliament for Germany, the new term European semester is incomprehensible (Euronews 2014). The word implementation also caused a multi-national furor. Xxxxx Xxxxxx, Italian translator for the Council of the European Union stated that implementation – implementazione is one of the most non-understandable words of EU terminology (Euronews 2014). Czech Deputy Minister for Regional Development, even stated at one press conference that whoever finds the best Czech translation for the word implementace will get ten thousand crowns (Opava 2009, 117).
As stated Mr. Xxxxxx (2014), the EU is the revolutionary political project which cannot be perfect, and there is still something that should be improved. However, Eurojargon is becoming an inherent part of the EU, and it may be considered an English dialect which should also be a part of the examination for EU job positions (Euronews 2014).
3.3 Institutions translating for the EU
The list of official EU languages is already very long, and the cost of multilingualism increases with every single language. It means that there has to be an ensured quality translation service because documents have to be translated into all official languages to ensure a commitment to multilingualism. Translation services of the EU are one of the biggest in the world concerning the size, language diversity, and themes they are covering (Xxxxx 2018).
The services are continuously improved by professional translators and new computer- based tools. Translation memories are nowadays one of the most essential and fundamental tools for EU translators, supplemented with Euramis - institutional translation database and IATE which is another crucial translating tool developed by the EU. IATE is a database of all terminology concerning the EU, consisting of more than eight million terms in all 24 official languages (Xxxxxxxx 2014, 77).
There is no single institution agency which could do all the translation services. There are several of them targeting specific authorities or sectors. The Directorate-General provides for the European Commission and also cooperates with the European Parliament, Court of Justice of the European and European Court of Auditors Union. The General Secretariat of the Council provides translation services for the European Council and the Council of the European Union. Besides institutions mentioned above, more than one- quarter of all translators are external translators whose work have the same value as those employed by the EU. Services of external translators are used, for instance, by the European Central Bank. For translating for other decentralized agencies, was established Translation Centre For the Bodies of the European Union in 1994 by Council. Its task is to help other institutions in the periods of excessive workloads and rationalize and harmonize work practices and methods. All of the translators must provide high-quality translation services and to keep costs at an acceptable level (Xxxxxx, Xxxx and Xxxxxxxx 2014).
The same general rules for translation of documents for the EU have to be applied in the process of translation. These rules for writing documents are set in an Interinstitutional style guide (2011) published in the Official Journal of Europe divided into parts, each concerning a different issue from stylistics to grammar. Part four of this official journal differs depending on the language, and it is written according to rules of a given language. The goal of this publication is to take into account the specific nature of Union law and its terminology, so that those who have the right to use or interpret the act in any Member State perceived it not as a "translation" in the wrong sense but as a text, which corresponds to a particular legislative style (Xxxxxx, Xxxx and Xxxxxxxx 2014).
4 SELECTED TRANSLATION CORPUS
The Practical part is analysing three legal documents which are fundamental for the EU - Treaty establishing the European Coal and Steel Community (1951), Treaty on European Union (1992) and the Consolidated versions of the Treaty on European Union and the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (2007). There are being analysed English documents and official translated versions in the Czech language. The corpus translations will be assessed and compared, using the tools and strategies described in the theoretical part concerning its language and structure. For this analysis was selected to analyse only a part of the documents, concretely titles relating to Common Provisions. Examined documents belong to the primary source of the law of the EU, and they are categorized as legal texts with a normative purpose. The whole concept of the EU is based on these documents.
The reason for the selection of these documents is because there is a time span of more than fifteen years between each of them. The question of analysis is whether some language and translational changes are visible throughout this timeline or whether the rigidity of the legal language and the way of translation have persisted. There is also an awareness of the fact that CR joined the EU in 2004, following that the translation was created later after 2004 (Xxxxx 2018). However, regardless of this fact, the translations of the documents may still differ. Taking into account the possibility that the use of legal English terminology changes throughout the time, it is being analysed whether the Czech translators had been using unified terminology regardless the original or they took into account the style of the language used in documents. The analysis also reveals whether there are visible some improvements in the system of translation within the EU or it remains without any changes. The following subchapters represent selected documents concerning its circumstances of the origin and primary purpose.
4.1 Treaty establishing the European Coal and Steel Community
Also known under the name the Treaty of Paris. It was signed 18 April 1951, and it came into force in July 1952. It was founded after World War II with the aim of Franco-German reconciliation. It is an agreement where six countries (France, Italy, Germany and the Benelux countries - Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg) committed to pooling the coal and steel industries (European Parliament 2009, 13). This collaboration is perceived as the first steps to European integration, and these fundamentals were later expanded in the Treaties of Rome in 1957. The primary goal of the treaty was to establish a common market based on the freedom of movement of goods, persons, capital, and services. It contains the
fundamental principles on which the entire EU has been built (Muntigl, Xxxxx and Wodak 2000, 51). It expired on 23 July 2002, and it was replaced by others. However, the underlying principles remain.
It was a primary source of law for the EU, and it had a normative purpose. The original version of the Treaty of Paris was written in French. It follows that the examined text is not an original one, but it is a translation. Whereas Great Britain was not one of the founding countries and it joined this community in 1973, it is possible that the translation was created later. With this fact raises the question whether there is an impact of the French language on the version of the English translation or not and whether there is this impact visible in the CZ versions of translations.
As far as the Czech translation is concerned, Czech translation has been created later after the Czech Republic entered the European Union and it was found out that the CZ version does not exactly correspond to the original one. Some paragraphs were added in the CZ version and the whole Article 78 does not match the original. The rest of the translation semantically corresponds to the original. Only some articles are cancelled in comparison to the original. The Czech version of the treaty was downloaded from the official websites of the Government of the Czech Republic (xxxxxxxx.xx 2005-2018). These websites provide the Czech citizens' information taken from the events of the European Union.
The point is that there is no remark on these official websites or in the translated document that the Czech translation of the Treaty of Paris does not entirely match the original. There is not also any notion that it was translated with amendments. This fact may be seen as administrative erred of the Government of the Czech Republic. From the legal point of view, the legal document of such status should not have been published elsewhere without any announcement or annotation that does not correspond to the original. Legal documents with a modification must be properly marked. There is no mark about non- equivalence to the original version of this document. It could be presupposed that such official organ which takes over everything directly from the institutions of the European Union will not make any misunderstanding as it has done. However, this discovery emerged during the analysis, and because of added articles in the Czech version, the quantitative data may differ between CZ and EN versions.
4.2 Treaty on European Union
Treaty on European Union, well known as the Maastricht Treaty was signed in Maastricht on 7 February 1992 and it came into force on 1 November 1993. The origin of this treaty
was influenced by the fall of Communism in Central and Eastern Europe and the prospect of uniting Germany with the commitment to strengthen the international community position (Xxxxx 1999, 145). It changed all previous contracts concerning the EU community and created the EU which was based on three pillars: “the existing EC Treaties, the Common Foreign and Security Policy and the Fields of Justice and Home Affairs” (Xxxxxx and Xxxxx 2005, 4-5).
Unlike the previous analysis, this treaty was written simultaneously in French, German and English language. This fact shows that the English analysed material is the original one. However, at that time there were not any discussions of multilingualism and unification of terminology discussed as much as these days, and even institutions concerning the translation were founded later after this agreement came into force (Xxxxxx, Xxxx and Xxxxxxxx 2002, 23). The question is whether this fact had some impact on legal documents at that time or whether it is comparable to those published later. As far as the Czech translation, it was translated after the CR joined the EU. However, it may be expected that thanks to a 30-year-old difference, the English language somehow differs from the previous treaty.
4.3 Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union
The Treaty changes (not replaces) the two founding treaties of the EU: i.e., the Treaty on European Union (1992) and the Treaty establishing the European Community (1957). It was signed in Lisbon on 13 December 2007, and it came into force on 1 December 2009. Thanks to the venue of the signature is also known as the Treaty of Lisbon. It provides the European Union with the appropriate legal framework and tools to address future challenges. The primary reasons for the treaty were needs to increase the efficiency of the decision-making process, to strengthen democracy through the more significant role of the European Parliament and the national parliaments and to improve cohesion in external relations (Xxxxxx 2005, 42). The treaty was ratified by all 27 member states. In 2007 the EU had 27 member states, and it was at the height of growth because from that year only one country joined the EU (Xxxxxx 2005, 42). Following that, that time could have been already seen the growth of the multilingual environment and the appearance of Eurojargon and the need to set some rules for the translation and unification of the terminology. As it has been already mentioned in chapter 3.2, this treaty has enshrined Multilingualism in Article 22 (TFEU 2007).
It is being analysed whether there is a visible appearance of Eurojargon and whether there is an occurrence of a different terminology in comparison to previous treaties. The translation had been done within two years of the treaty entering into force, and at that time, the Czech Republic had already been a member of the EU for three years. It follows that it will be examined whether there are visible some aspects of better quality of translation or whether the translation services are still at the same level.
5 LEVELS OF ANALYSIS
This chapter is analysing all language levels that were mentioned in chapter one. The analysis is being done from levels of Lexicology Grammar and Discourse, taking into account comparative and translational point of view. English (EN) and Czech (EN) versions of individual documents are being analysed from the translational point of view, and English documents are being examined from the comparative point of view concerning the development over time.
5.1 Lexicology
Terminology and vocabulary of legal texts, especially those belonging to the primary source of law, are the essential parts when the legal texts are analysed because even one word may cause misinterpretation. It is because norms are carrying rules of conduct and they set to us what is permitted and what is prohibited (Harvánek et al. 2008, 97). For the usage of the analysis have been chosen individual Titles of documents, concerning the General provision which is an integral part of each regulation. General provisions are considered as something like an introductory part where there are set principles according to which is governed whole act. It consists of terminology which is strictly necessary for the interpretation and application of the legislation as a whole. Subchapters are analysing the texts as a whole, what type of terminology is used, foreign terminology and archaisms.
5.1.1 Structure of the documents
Table 2 demonstrates the complete overview of structures of texts.
Treaty of Paris EN | Treaty of Paris CZ | Maastricht Treaty EN | Maastricht Treaty CZ | Treaty of Lisbon EN | Treaty of Lisbon CZ | |
Words in text | 2516 | 3271 | 716 | 498 | 885 | 719 |
Distinct words | 580 | 1091 | 253 | 291 | 301 | 355 |
Sentences | 85 | 156 | 23 | 25 | 34 | 37 |
Table 2: Structure of documents
It can be seen that the CZ translated version of the Treaty of Paris contains the most words. On the other hand, least words have was found in EN version of the Maastricht Treaty. The reasons, why there are some quantitative differences between original and translated texts are being commented in the grammatical part of this analysis. A reason for the difference between EN and CZ version of the Treaty of Paris has been discussed in the previous chapter.
Table 3 is an example of these differences. Comparing the EN and CZ version, there are, for example, added headlines to the articles in the CZ version. Next crucial distinction, which is seen in Table 3, is in dates. Table 3 is an evident proof of differentiation of these two versions. However, as it has been already mentioned in the previous chapter, the reason for this differentiation is unknown.
English Version | Czech Version |
Article 78 1. The fiscal year of the Community shall extend from July 1 to June 30 (Treaty of Paris 1951). | Článek 78 Rozpočet 1. Rozpočtový rok začíná 1. ledna a končí 31. prosince. Rozpočtové výdaje Společenství zahrnují výdaje Komise včetně výdajů na Poradní výbor a výdaje Evropského parlamentu, Rady a Soudního Dvora (Pařížská smlouva 1951). |
Table 3: Differences in EN and CZ versions of the Treaty of Paris
5.1.2 The most frequent vocabulary
This subchapter analyses the most frequent vocabulary appearing in all documents with the division to CZ documents and EN documents and then a comparison between them. These differences are demonstrated in table 4. In the EN version of the Treaty of Paris is missing the word Parliament in contrast to the CZ one. The word Parliament appears only in the CZ version in the Article 78 a – i. These paragraphs are those that are missing in the EN version.
The two most frequent words are considered as essential for legal language, and most of the legal documents must contain these words. E.g., a word Article - the reason is that this type of legislative documents has to be divided into parts and division into articles is the most frequent. Words Council, Parliament, Union are on the other hand essential vocabulary of the EU. Council and Parliament are the hallmarks of the most important institutions of the European Union. Concerning the historical aspects, the example is demonstrated on the word Union. As table 4 shows, this word was not used in the Treaty of Paris. The reason is that references to something like the Union appeared later. And at the time when the Treaty of Paris was written, instead of the Union was established a Community.
EN | The Treaty of Paris | Maastricht Treaty | Treaty of Lisbon |
ARTICLE | 34 | 8 | 21 |
TREATY | 32 | 9 | 6 |
COUNCIL | 14 | 7 | 5 |
PARLIAMENT | 0 | 2 | 5 |
UNION | 0 | 15 | 20 |
CZ | Treaty of Paris | Maastricht Treaty | Treaty of Lisbon |
ČLÁNEK | 73 | 7 | 19 |
SMLOUVA | 44 | 9 | 12 |
RADA | 44 | 7 | 5 |
PARLAMENT | 28 | 2 | 5 |
UNIE | 0 | 15 | 20 |
Table 4: Most frequent vocabulary both Czech and English versions of documents
As far as the Czech translation is concerned, table 4 shows that the most frequent words are equivalents to those English ones. It has to be noted that the words are written in the basic form, however, inflection and plurals are counted as well.
Comparing the word Article both in CZ and EN versions of the Maastricht Treaty, the number is higher in the EN text. The reason was found in the Article B, fourth paragraph, wherein the CZ version of the translation is the word článek expressed by the abbreviation čl. The same case of an abbreviation may be seen in the Treaty of Lisbon with pairs smlouva
- treaty. The example may be demonstrated in Article 9 of the Treaty of Lisbon. In the CZ version is a reference to the Treaty establishing the European Community expressed by Xxxxxxx o ES, in EN version is this term expressed only by an abbreviation TEC.
In this part is being discussed the question of the legal terminology in the treaties. It demonstrates a typical legal terminology, essential for all regulations both in EN and CZ versions.
As far as a legal translation is concerned, there have been published several legal dictionaries to unify the vocabulary of the legal language. Table 5 demonstrates the most important and used words or phrases with their Czech equivalents.
EN | Treaty of Paris | Maastricht Treaty | Treaty of Lisbon |
Title | Title | Title | |
General provisions | Common provisions | Provisions having general application | |
Article | Article | Article | |
Enter into force | |||
Competence | Competence | ||
Legislative provision | |||
Ordinary legislative procedure | |||
Legislative act | |||
CZ | Treaty of Paris | Maastricht Treaty | Treaty of Lisbon |
Hlava | Hlava | Hlava | |
Obecná ustanovení | Společná ustanovení | Obecně použitelná ustanovení | |
Článek | Článek | Článek | |
Vstoupit v platnost | |||
Pravomoc | Pravomoc | ||
Právní předpis | |||
Řádný legislativní postup | |||
Legislativní akt |
The most frequent and important terminology is demonstrated in table 5. The first word is a word which is an essential part of each legislative documents similar to treaties. It is a headline of each subchapter called Hlava in CZ and Title in EN. The headline needs to be followed by another subchapter. In analysed texts are concrete subtitles containing the general principles of treaties. They are underlined in table 5. As table 5 demonstrates, headlines have changed over past 50 years both in CZ and EN versions. However, they still convey the same purpose.
The subchapter follows with another subchapter, already discussed in a previous chapter, known as an Article in EN version and Článek in the CZ version. These three words are unique terminology which has been found in all three documents.
The issue of Eurojargon is discussed in the third chapter. Eurojargon was searched for also in analysed parts, and its usage was actually found. However, not in the quantity that was expected. Chapter 3.2 mentions the problem of the word implementation and its equivalents
in other languages (CZ – Implementace, IT – Implementazione) with the criticism of these translations. The word Implementation was found in the Maastricht Treaty. However, the example [1] demonstrates that in the Maastricht Treaty, the implementation was not translated as implementace, but there was used another equivalent – provádění. The way it was translated into Czech is much more understandable to Czech speakers, and this equivalent is also deductible from the definition of Oxford dictionary which states that implementation is “The process of putting a decision or plan into effect; execution” (2018). [1]
to assert its identity on the international scene, in particular through the implementation of a common foreign and security policy including the eventual framing of a common defence policy, which might in time lead to a common defence (Maastricht Treaty 1992). | potvrzovat svou identitu na mezinárodní scéně, zejména prováděním společné zahraniční a bezpečnostní politiky včetně budoucího vymezení společné obranné politiky, která by v určitém okamžiku mohla vést ke společné obraně (Maastrichtská smlouva 1992). |
The research on Eurojargon has been done based on the official website of the European Commission (2016) and on the book by Xxxxxxxxx and Pokorná named Euro English (2004). However, only a few words have been denotates as Eurojargon. Other words which according to study material fulfil the features of Eurojargon and was found in treaties are: solidarity, subsidiarity, transparent, acquis coommunautaire. This analysis concludes that the occurrence of Eurojargon is not so common in normative texts. The occurrence of Eurojargon was slightly expected in the Treaty of Lisbon because at the time of its publishing Eurojargon had already been a discussed the topic. However, this statement was not confirmed. After the study of the professional materials was drawn the conclusion that the occurrence of Eurojargon is quite common in secondary sources of law and administrative documents, especially in the sector of economy and business (Kocmanová and Pokorná 2004).
5.1.5 Foreign and archaic terminology
Foreign terminology and archaisms are usual in legal English because of the ancient history of law (Xxxxx and Sours 2014, 58). A frequent occurrence of terminology may be seen especially in primary sources of law. They ensure the rigidity of the text and correct
interpretation. This subchapter is analysing whether there is an occurrence of foreign terminology or archaisms.
The incidence of English archaisms in treaties was compared based on the publication Law Words: 30 essays on legal words and phrases (1995), which set the foreign and archaic legal terminology. Table 6 shows the results of the analysis.
Treaty of Paris | Maastricht Treaty | Treaty of Lisbon | |
PARLIAMENT | 0 | 2 | 5 |
TREATY | 32 | 8 | 3 |
ACQUIS COMMUNAUTAIRE | 0 | 2 | 0 |
ANNEX | 2 | 0 | 0 |
COURT | 12 | 1 | 1 |
EVIDENCE | 1 | 0 | 0 |
PARTY(IES) | 4 | 0 | 0 |
ACTION | 3 | 0 | 0 |
APPEAL | 3 | 0 | 0 |
EXECUTION | 4 | 0 | 0 |
Table 6: The occurrence of words of French origin.
The results show that the English words with a French and Latin origin are preponderant. All words listed in table 6 are words with a French origin. The results show that the most words with a French origin appear in the Treaty of Paris. It may be caused by a fact that the analysed English version of the Treaty of Paris is a translation from a French original. The Maastricht Treaty and the Treaty of Lisbon kept occurrence of these words to a minimum.
Table 7 copies words from table 6 with its Czech, French and Latin translation. French and Latin equivalents have been added to the comparison, whether the Czech translation from the English language uses the words with French (Latin) origin as well. The Column with the Latin terminology has been added to demonstrate the similarity with French, following that all shown French words have its origin in Latin.
EN | FR | Latin | CZ |
PARLIAMENT | Parlement | Parliamentum | Parlament |
TREATY | Traité | Tractatus | Smlouva |
ACQUIS COMMUNAUTAIRE | Acquis communautaire | X | Acquis communautaire |
ANNEX | Annexer | Annectere | Příloha |
COURT | Cort | Cohors | Soud |
EVIDENCE | Évidence | Evidentia | Svědectví |
PARTY(IES) | Partie | Partiri | Strana(y) |
ACTION | Action | Actio | Rozhodnutí |
APPEAL | Apeler | Appelare | Vznést (žalobu) |
EXECUTION | Executus | Executer | Exekuce |
INSTRUMENT | Instrumentum | Instrumentum | Listina |
Table 7: The occurrence of words of French origin with its equivalents
Table 7 demonstrates the proof of derivation from French, based on the similarity of words. However, as far as the CZ translation is concerned, there are only two words derived from French or Latin. The CZ word Parlament is obvious, and there is just a slight change to the original one. The second one is Acquis communautaire which is not being translated when it comes to the translation in the EU. According to the official website of the EU, Acquis communautaire is considered as Eurojargon and its definition is "EU law or rules" (European Commission 2016). The reason of this derivation in the English language is that there are many words with French origin mainly because of its shared history. On the other hand, the Czech language belongs to another family of languages and the Czech legal language is not affected as much as the English one.
As far as archaisms are concerned, there have not been found many in treaties. The analysis of archaisms was based on the online Oxford dictionary (2018) and the book Law Words: 30 essays on legal words and phrases (1995). Table 8 demonstrates archaisms which were found in the English language with a translation into CZ and comments whether the word is considered as an archaism in CZ language as well.
EN | CZ | Archaic word? |
SUBSEQUENT | Následný | YES |
JOINTLY | Společně | NO |
THE SAID | X | X |
HEREIN | X | X |
Archaisms jointly and the said were found in the Treaty of Paris. The word subsequent has been found in the Maastricht Treaty. The Treaty of Lisbon does not contain any archaisms. Czech translators in the Treaty of Paris left out the equivalent of the word to said. This provision is rather paraphrased in the Treaty of Paris.
[2]
EN - … shall be understood as referring to the clauses of the said Treaty and its annexes
(Treaty of Paris 1951).
CZ - … znamenají ustanovení smlouvy i jejích příloh a připojených protokolů (Pařížská smlouva 1951).
The archaic word jointly which has been translated into Czech as společně has not been found as an archaism in CZ language.
The conclusion is corresponding to the previous one. According to analysis may be concluded that the treaties do not contain many archaisms.
5.2 Grammatical Level
The grammatical part of the analysis analyses syntactic-morphological aspects appearing in the Treaties. This chapter is a practical application of chapter 2.3.2 from the theoretical part.
5.2.1 Length and Structure of Sentences
Table 9 represents the number of sentences and an approximate number of words per sentences both in CZ and EN versions.
Treaty of Paris EN | Treaty of Paris CZ | Maastricht Treaty EN | Maastricht Treaty CZ | Treaty of Lisbon EN | Treaty of Lisbon CZ | |
Sentences | 85 | 156 | 23 | 25 | 34 | 37 |
Ø number of words/sentence | 30 | 21 | 33 | 20 | 27 | 20 |
Table 9: Number of sentences in documents
It is evident from table 9 that the higher average number of words per sentence have the EN versions. The EN versions have in average thirty words per sentence while the CZ versions have twenty. This distinction may be caused by the different grammatical structures of Czech and English sentences. The main difference between the structures of CZ and EN sentences is that the English language uses a definite the or indefinite a/an article before every noun
in the singular (with some exceptions also in plural) form. The Czech language does not have this phenomenon.
Another distinction which causes this difference is the preposition of, which is being expressed by the second case in CZ language (Hladký 1991, 50). The preposition of is also one of three most commonly used words in all analysed treaties. Example [4] demonstrates the comparison of this phenomena.
[4]
CZ: - upevňovat ochranu práv a zájmů státních příslušníků svých členských států zavedením občanství Unie (Maastrichtská smlouva 1992).
EN: - to strengthen the protection of the rights and interests of the nationals of its Member States through the introduction of a citizenship of the Union (Maastricht Treaty 1992).
Articles | Treaty of Paris | Maastricht Treaty | Treaty of Lisbon |
A | 36 | 16 | 6 |
An | 16 | 2 | 1 |
The | 347 | 94 | 81 |
Total | 399 | 112 | 88 |
Ø number of articles in a sentence | 13 | 3 | 3 |
Table 10: Usage of articles in English versions of documents
Table 10 demonstrates the total number of articles used in EN versions of treaties. While taking into account the comparative translational method, it is evident that the different grammar rules of these two languages cause a difference in an average number of words per sentence. According to table 10, the article the has the most extensive representation, and in fact, it turned out that it is the most frequent word of all words used in treaties. It represents about 13% of the total. Such a wide representation of the article the is also caused by the fact, that for English grammar, it is a definite article which refers to proper nouns (Hladký 1991, 64).
Table 11 demonstrates the most common proper names used in the treaties. The definite article the denotes proper names of institutions of the EU. However, the usage of the article the in a legal context is not only the question of grammar, but it moves into the level of discourse analysis, and it dictates the cohesiveness of legal texts (Xxxxxx 2011, 103).
Treaty of Paris | Maastricht Treaty | Treaty of Lisbon | |
The Union | 0 | 12 | 14 |
The European Parliament | 0 | 2 | 5 |
The Council | 14 | 3 | 5 |
The member states | 10 | 4 | 5 |
The Treaties | 0 | 0 | 3 |
The Community | 13 | 0 | 0 |
Table 11: The most common proper names used in documents
5.2.1.2 The Sentence Structure
As far as the structure of sentences is concerned, they are following the general rules of grammar of a given language. English, as well as the Czech language, follow the same rule for structuring a sentence – SVO (subject – verb – object) and this structure may be completed with an adverbial of time, place or manner (Hladký 1991, 64). However, the Czech language is being referred to as more flexible in comparison to English. It also supports the fact that the Czech language is unlike the English language a pro-drop language, meaning that it is possible to omit a subject (Machová and Xxxxxxxxxx 2017, 13). This difference between the languages has been the subject of analysis as well. Example [5] is an example of an omission of a subject in the Czech sentence with a comparison to an English equivalent where the omission of the subject is ungrammatical (Xxxxxxx and Xxxxxxxxxx 2017, 13).
Example [5] is an extract from the article C of the Maastricht Treaty. Another example may be found, for instance in article 88 of the Treaty of Paris.
[5]
EN: They shall ensure the implementation of these policies (Maastricht Treaty 1992).
CZ: V rámci svých pravomocí zajišťují provádění těchto politik (Maastrichtská smlouva 1992).
The personal pronoun oni was dropped in the CZ version whereas in the EN version the
subject is expressed by the personal pronoun they. The EN version of a sentence would be ungrammatical without this pronoun. However, in the Czech version of treaties, the phenomenon of dropping subjects is not used very often, and the sentences are constructed more precisely according to grammatical rules to ensure the correct interpretation. In the regulatory environment, the dropping of a subject may cause troubles which have to be later dealt by courts of justice. It has to be noticed that in the analysed part of the Treaty of Lisbon were not found any dropped subjects.
Treaty of Lisbon reveals another phenomenon which occurs in most paragraphs. This phenomenon is in the theory of syntax called fronting. Fronting means that the constituent is moved in front of the subject (Machová and Xxxxxxxxxx 2017, 60). An example of fronting is demonstrated on example [6]. The fronted constituents are underlined. The subjects are (EN) the Union and (CZ) Unie.
[6]
EN: In defining and implementing its policies and activities, the Union shall aim to combat discrimination based on sex, racial or ethnic origin, religion or belief, disability, age or sexual orientation (Treaty of Lisbon 2008).
CZ: Při vymezování a provádění svých politik a činností se Unie zaměřuje na boj proti jakékoliv diskriminaci na základě pohlaví, rasy nebo etnického původu, náboženského vyznání nebo přesvědčení, zdravotního postižení, věku nebo sexuální orientace (Lisabonská smlouva 2008).
This phenomenon has also been found in two other analysed documents, however, not in
such a great quantity as in the Treaty of Lisbon. Fronting has been discovered in the Treaty of Paris, however, not in both versions. In Article 76 of the Treaty of Paris was fronting used only in the EN version and in the CZ one was not as demonstrates example [7].
[7]
EN: Under the conditions set forth in an annexed Protocol, the Community shall enjoy on the territory of the member States the privileges and immunities necessary to the exercise of its functions (Treaty of Paris 1951).
CZ: Společenství požívá na území členských států výsad a imunit potřebných k plnění jeho úkolů, a to za podmínek stanovených v Protokolu z 8. 4. 1965 o výsadách a imunitách Evropských společenství (Pařížská smlouva 1951).
5.2.2 Text-structuring patterns
The chapter 2.3.2.1 mentions text-structuring patterns. These text- structuring patterns are part of analysed documents as well. The analysis discovered following patterns consisting of three to five words.
Treaty of Paris | EN | CZ |
...in accordance with the provisions… | …v souladu s ustanovením … | |
...by virtue of present treaty … | ...na základě této smlouvy… | |
Maastricht Treaty | EN | CZ |
...in accordance with the conditions… | ...za podmínek a… | |
Treaty of Lisbon | CZ | EN |
...the status under national law… | postavení které podle vnitrostátního práva |
Table 12: Text-structuring patterns
Table 12 contains the text-structuring patterns appearing in documents more than once. Their occurrence has been noted in the middle of sentences. As far as the equivalents in the target language are concerned, there is a requirement also on the fixed translations. These equivalents may be found in legal dictionaries.
Table 13 demonstrates numbers of sentences and an average percentage of the use of passive voice in proportion to the overall English texts.
Treaty of Paris | Maastricht Treaty | Treaty of Lisbon |
36 | 8 | 4 |
16.4 % | 11.8 % | 4.3 % |
The occurrence of verbs in passive voice is in the form of third person singular (EN – is submitted, CZ – je předložen), third person plural (EN – are approved, CZ – jsou schváleny) or in the infinitive (EN - be integrated, CZ – být zahrnuty). Unlike English, the Czech language disposes of additional type of passive voice, called zvratný pasiv (Xxxx 2017, 78). Passives in the treaties are expressed mostly in the present tense, however, in the Treaty of Paris have also been found in the future tense. It has to be noticed that in EN versions are passives expressed mainly in the form of the infinitive. However, the most translations of passives with the verb be in infinitive are translated into Czech in the form of the third person singular or plural. The exception has been noticed in the Treaty of Paris where is the half of passives formed in the third person singular, and the other half is in the infinitive. As far as the Czech version of the Treaty of Paris is concerned, there has not
been found the rule for the translation of sentences with passive voice. Ways of translations are shown on the examples [8] to [13].
[8]
CZ: Sídlo orgánů Společenství určí vlády členských států (Pařížská smlouva 1951).
EN: The seat of the institutions of the Community shall be fixed by common agreement of the governments of the member States (Treaty of Paris 1951).
Example [8] demonstrates the example where the English passive was translated into the
Czech language as future tense. [9]
CZ: Návrh rozpočtu musí být předložen Evropskému parlamentu nejpozději do 5. října roku, který předchází příslušný rozpočtový rok (Pařížská smlouva 1951).
EN: The general estimate shall be included in the annual report presented by the High Authority to the Assembly under the provisions of Article 17 (Treaty of Paris 1951).
Example [9] is the literal translation of the passive sentence.
[10]
CZ: Vztahuje se i na evropská území, jejichž zahraniční vztahy některý signatář převzal
(Pařížská smlouva 1951).
EN: It is also applicable to those European territories whose foreign relations are assumed by a member State (Treaty of Paris 1951).
In example [10] was the whole Czech sentence translated by a free translation and the passive
construction is omitted. [11]
CZ: b) učinit, anebo zmocnit jiné členské státy, aby učinily opatření odchylná od článku 4, a to za tím účelem, aby byly napraveny účinky konstatovaného neplnění povinností (Pařížská smlouva 1951).
EN: (b) adopt measures or authorize the other member States to adopt measures involving an exception to the provisions of Article 4, so as to correct the effects of the delinquency in question (Treaty of Paris 1951).
Number [11] demonstrates the opposite of example [10]. Example [11] shows the case when
the original version did not use the passive voice, and the verb is expressed in the infinitive. [12]
CZ: Nucená exekuce na území členských států se provádí v právních formách platných v každém z těchto států (Pařížská smlouva 1951).
EN: They shall be enforced on the territory of member States through the legal procedures in effect in each of these States (Treaty of Paris 1951).
An example [12] is a demonstration of use of Czech zvratný pasiv, which English does not have.
The translation of the Treaty of Paris has been done by free translation, and examples
[8] to [12] demonstrates its possible usage. The translations of later treaties have been found more rigid in the comparison to the oldest one. The Maastricht treaty has in EN version 76% of its passives in the form of the infinitive. Some of them were transferred Czech translation into an active sentence as it is demonstrated on example [8]. However, in EN version of the Maastricht Treaty, most of the passives in the form of infinitive were translated into Czech as a third person singular or a third person plural. See example [13].
[13]
CZ: Cílů Unie je dosazováno za podmínek a v časovém sledu stanoveném touto smlouvou při dodržení zásady subsidiarity vymezené v článku 3b Smlouvy o založení Evropského společenství (Maastrichtská smlouva 1992).
EN: The objectives of the Union shall be achieved as provided in this Treaty and in accordance with the conditions and the timetable set out therein while respecting the principle of subsidiarity as defined in Article 3b of the Treaty establishing the European Community (Maastricht Treaty 1992).
The Treaty of Lisbon contains only four examples of passive sentences. All of them has
the verb be in infinitive and translation into the Czech language has been done either literal translation or conversion of the infinitive be into the third person of singular or plural.
Modal verbs play a significant role in the legal language. Table 14 indicates an occurrence of English modals in treaties.
Treaty of Paris EN | Maastricht Treaty EN | Treaty of Lisbon EN | |
Shall | 43 | 19 | 21 |
May | 20 | 1 | 0 |
Might | 0 | 1 | 0 |
Could | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Can | 1 | 0 | 0 |
Must | 0 | 0 | 1 |
Would | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Will (modal) | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Should | 3 | 0 | 0 |
Table 14: Occurrence of modal verbs
The most abundant representation has the modal verb shall. Modal verb shall express obligation, permission or prohibition in English and it is being translated into Czech with the same connotation as muset, mám, chystám se (Vít 2018). The way shall was translated in documents is demonstrated on following examples. However, it was noticed that most of the time the Czech equivalent of shall was not expressed.
[14]
CZ: Společenství požívá na území členských států výsad a imunit potřebných k plnění jeho úkolů (Pařížská smlouva 1951).
EN: Under the conditions set forth in an annexed Protocol, the Community shall enjoy on the territory of the member States the privileges and immunities necessary to the exercise of its functions. (Treaty of Paris 1951).
In the Czech version is a verb for permission omitted and it is expressed only by the verb in
present tense. [15]
CZ: Jejím posláním je utvářet vztahy mezi členskými státy a mezi jejich národy na základě soudržnosti a solidarity.
EN: Its task shall be to organize, in a manner demonstrating consistency and solidarity, relations between the Member States and between their peoples.
Example [15] is an example of expression an obligation. In EN version is the obligation
expressed by a modal verb shall, whereas in CZ version is shown only as a verb in present tense.
[16]
CZ: Cílů Unie je dosazováno za podmínek a v časovém sledu stanoveném touto smlouvou při dodržení zásady subsidiarity vymezené v článku 3b Smlouvy o založení Evropského společenství (Maastrichtská smlouva 1192).
EN: The objectives of the Union shall be achieved as provided in this Treaty and in accordance with the conditions and the timetable set out therein while respecting the principle of subsidiarity as defined in Article 3b of the Treaty establishing the European Community (Maastricht Treaty 1992).
The usage of shall in passive sentences has its share in documents as well. The modal verb
itself has no meaning in a passive sentence. However, it modifies the verb as it is demonstrated on example [16]. In the Maastricht Treaty and the Treaty of Lisbon, the modal verb shall translated is only as it is represented on example [16].
The usage of modal verb shall in terms of obligations is demonstrated on example [17]. [17]
CZ: Návrh rozpočtu musí být předložen Evropskému parlamentu nejpozději do 5. října roku, který předchází příslušný rozpočtový rok (Pařížská smlouva 1951).
EN: The general estimate shall be included in the annual report presented by the High Authority to the Assembly under the provisions of Article 17 (Treaty of Paris 1951).
As far as another expression of obligation is concerned, in the Maastricht Treaty was not
found. In the Treaty of Lisbon was found one obligation, expressed by a modal verb must.
Treaty of Paris contains the high occurrence of a modal verb may. They are being translated literary into CZ as Czech modal verb může as it shows example [18]. In the Maastricht Treaty was the modal verb may used only once and the translation into Czech has been done the same as in example [14].
[18]
CZ: Seznamy obsažené v této příloze může Rada doplňovat jednomyslným usnesením
(Pařížská smlouva 1951).
EN: Additions may be made to the lists set forth in this annex by unanimous decision of the Council (Treaty of Paris 1951).
5.3 Discourse Analysis
As it has been already noticed, this part of the analysis is being done based on Xxxxxxxx and Xxxxx'x cohesive devices. The texts are being analysed by referencing, substitution and conjunction.
Table 15 demonstrates how many times terms of reference in English versions of treaties were used. The analysis is based on endophoric referencing. There have been found 605 terms of reference throughout all texts. The most significant representation has the definite article the because as it has been already mentioned, the article the usually dictates the cohesiveness of the text.
Besides the definite article, there is also the apparent difference in usage of references term across the treaties. In the Treaty of Paris was found that the largest representation has personal pronouns, on the other hand in the Maastricht Treaty and the Treaty of Lisbon are predominant demonstrative pronouns. Another finding is that the most cohesive devices was found in the Treaty of Paris, on the other hand, the less cohesive devices contains the Treaty
of Lisbon. However, coherence is preserved in all three legal documents. This analysis also reveals the development in time.
Denotation | Treaty of Paris | Maastricht Treaty | Treaty of Lisbon | |
Personal pronoun | he | 2 | 0 | 0 |
his | 2 | 0 | 0 | |
it | 15 | 1 | 0 | |
they | 8 | 3 | 0 | |
them | 4 | 1 | 2 | |
Demonstrative | this | 8 | 7 | 5 |
these | 5 | 1 | 5 | |
that | 2 | 0 | 0 | |
those | 5 | 0 | 0 | |
Comparatives | another | 3 | 0 | 0 |
other | 9 | 2 | 1 | |
Definite article | the | 347 | 94 | 81 |
Total | 410 | 109 | 94 |
Examples [19] - [22] illustrates some cases where was used the referencing as a cohesive device. Examples also contain CZ translation for comparison how the Czech language dealt with this issue.
[19]
EN: The Council shall appoint an Auditor to serve for three years. His term may be renewed. He shall exercise his functions in complete independence. The Auditor may not hold any other post in any institution or agency of the Community (Treaty of Paris 1952).
Example [19] is an example of an anaphora. Personal pronouns he and his are referring to
the previous mentioned Auditor. For reason of some inequality in Czech and English versions of the Treaty of Paris, there is no possibility to demonstrate the Czech translation because Czech translation of this paragraph has different wording.
[20]
EN: The Court of Justice of the European Union, the European Central Bank and the European Investment Bank shall be subject to this paragraph only when exercising their administrative tasks (Treaty of Lisbon 2008).
CZ: Soudní dvůr Evropské unie, Evropská centrální banka a Evropská investiční banka podléhají tomuto odstavci, pouze pokud vykonávají své správní funkce (Lisabonská smlouva 2008).
Example [20] is the case where is the CZ version translated literally from the EN. Both cases
are examples of esophoric reference where the word this (tomuto) refer immediately to following word paragraph (odstavec). It has to be mentioned that the esophoric references are typical for legal language, mainly denoted by demonstrative pronouns. This type of coherence ensures easier interpretation at the court of justice because demonstrative pronoun refers directly to the exact subject (paragraph or article). If these demonstrative pronouns were not present, it would cause misunderstanding due to the paragraph or article mentioned not being clear enough.
[21]
CZ: Rada a Komise odpovídají za zajištění této soudržnosti. V rámci svých pravomocí zajišťují provádění těchto politik (Maastrichtská smlouva 1992).
EN: The Council and the Commission shall be responsible for ensuring such consistency. They shall ensure the implementation of these policies, each in accordance with its respective powers (Maastricht Treaty 1992).
Example [21] demonstrates a difference between Czech and English language, where is
visible that, that Czech is pro-drop language and the dropping of the subject is possible. Whereas in the EN example is an apparent reference as a pro-form, where pronoun they refer to the Council and the Commission, in CZ version is this third person plural expressed with the help of verb zajišťovat.
Another type of reference which is not part of Xxxxxxxx and Xxxxx'x model is referencing to another text, in this case to another treaty or regulation as demonstrates example [22]. [22]
CZ: Aniž jsou dotčeny článek 4 Smlouvy o Evropské unii a články 93, 106 a 107 této smlouvy
(Lisabonská smlouva 2007).
EN: Without prejudice to Article 4 of the Treaty on European Union or to Articles 93, 106 and 107 of this Treaty (Treaty of Lisbon 2007).
The analysis of substitution revealed that this kind of reference is not so common in legal documents. Throughout documents have been found only one nominal substitution in the
Treaty of Paris. Because of the differences in the CZ and EN version, there is no translation for this article in CZ.
[23]
EN: Each one of the institutions of the Community shall draw up an estimate of its administrative expenditures, broken down into articles and chapters (Treaty of Paris 1951).
Table 16 shows the conjunctions which were found in treaties. Together have been found 176 conjunctional elements.
Treaty of Paris | Maastricht Treaty | Treaty of Lisbon | ||
Additive | and | 49 | 33 | 52 |
also | 5 | 0 | 0 | |
either | 1 | 0 | 0 | |
as well as | 2 | 0 | 0 | |
Adversative | only | 1 | 0 | 1 |
however | 1 | 0 | 0 | |
Causal | so | 2 | 0 | 0 |
for | 19 | 6 | 1 | |
Temporal | then | 1 | 0 | 0 |
Immediately | 1 | 0 | 0 | |
since | 0 | 0 | 1 | |
Total | 82 | 39 | 55 |
Table 16: Conjunction references
As far as the translation is concerned, their equivalents in the Czech language have been fulfilled literally with the conjunctions conveying the same semantic meaning. Only for example [24] is visible the formality and features of administrative style within the translation. Collocation as well as was translated as jakož i, which is not used very often and it is a feature of the formal Czech language.
[24]
CZ: pokud jde o články 65 a 66, jakož i o informace požadované k jejich provádění a žaloby v souvislosti s nimi podávané, též podniky nebo instituce, které provozují pravidelně distribuční činnost jinou než prodej domácnostem nebo drobným řemeslníkům (Pařížská smlouva 1951).
EN: and in addition, as concerns Articles 65 and 66 as well as information required for their application and appeals based upon them, to any enterprise or organization regularly engaged in distribution other than sale to domestic consumers or to artisan industries (Treaty of Paris 1951).
Although many cohesive elements have been found in the analysis of conjunctions, the
referential analysis still prevails.
CONCLUSION
Purpose of this bachelor thesis was to make a discourse analysis of fundamental treaties of the European Union. It was drawn up descriptive and critical discourse analysis of both English and Czech translated versions of treaties. The main aim was to find out whether there are some changes both in English legal language and in Czech versions of translations considering the timeline. Another aspect that has been analysed was the occurrence of Eurojargon within original texts and the comparison whether it affects Czech versions of translations.
In the theoretical part has been defined the concept of discourse analysis with the emphasis on those levels of language which have been used as tools of analysis in the practical part. In the chapter about forensic linguistic have been defined peculiarities of the legal language and the last part was focused on the European Union. In the chapter about the concept of the EU have also been discussed various points of view on these institutional concepts.
The practical part introduced all studied materials with descriptions of their nature and purpose, followed by qualitative and quantitative analyses of lexicology, grammar, and discourse. The breakthrough discovery has been found during the comparative analysis of Czech and English versions of the Treaty of Paris. It has been found out that the Czech version does not entirely match the English one. In the Czech version has been changed the Article 78 and also, there have been added some extra paragraphs. This phenomenon would not be unusual if the document was marked as amended or if there were some footnotes as it is usual in legal documents. However, the Czech version of translation which was downloaded from official websites of the Government of the Czech Republic does not have any of these indications of amendments from which it follows that one can regard it as identical with the original. This finding may be considered as one of the administrative mistakes of the Government of the Czech Republic. While it is true that the Czech Republic enter the European Union more than fifty years after the drafting of this original treaty, there is no excuse for publishing a translation of a legal document that does not correspond to the original without any notice. Therefore, it must be noted that some of the quantitative data in the Treaty of Paris may not be considered as reliable, because there has to be an awareness of this difference. The other treaties which were also published on the official website of the Government of the Czech Republic corresponded to the originals both from the qualitative and quantitative points of view.
As far as the main findings of the analyses are concerned, from the point of view of lexicology, all three treaties contain common legal terminology with the same translation over past years. As something that can be considered as an evolution over time is the amendment concerning the title on the general provision, which has changed in both the EN and CZ legal documents over the last fifty years. As far as Eurojargon is concerned, it has been surprisingly found that the occurrence of Eurojargon was kept on minimum even in the youngest Treaty. Archaisms and foreign terminology have been found predominantly in the EN version of the Treaty of Paris. French words have the predominance in the Treaty of Paris which may be caused by the fact that this treaty was originally draft in French and translated later to the English. However, CZ versions do not contain words with French origin, and the occurrence of archaisms is at a minimum.
The grammatical part applied the theoretical part of the concrete examples from the treaties. These grammatical aspects have been compared and commented with Czech equivalents. The most grammatical phenomena and the peculiarities of translation into Czech were found in the Treaty of Paris. There has also been found another grammatical aspect which is not mentioned in the theoretical part named fronting.
In the analysis of discourse have been found that referring devices were the predominant cohesive ties in the text. The reason is that analysed texts are written text, and the need to keep participants in the discourse gives rise to the predominant use of the personal and demonstrative pronouns. It follows that these cohesive devices are essential for understanding the written discourse, especially the legal one.
When comparing all three documents regarding the way of translation, there have been found differences between them. Treaty of Paris has been made as a free translation. Most of the Articles which semantically correspond are written grammatically differently. Maastricht treaty is something between literary and free translation. However, it is closer to the literary one. The Treaty of Lisbon may be in contrast to the Treaty of Paris considered as a literary translation. In the Treaty of Lisbon may be seen the phenomena of the highest accuracy and rigidity as possible. In conclusion, it can be noted that the discourse analysis revealed that the time difference influenced both the content and the style of the English legal language as well as in translated versions.
Discovered differences may agree with the fact that when there were some of the documents drafted there did not exist any norm for the creation of uniform legal documents. The first version of the Interinstitutional style guide was published in 1997, meaning that only the Treaty of Lisbon has been made according to these rules. As far as Czech
translations are concerned, chapter four mentions that translations into the Czech language have been done later after the Czech Republic entered the EU. It means that there cannot be taken into account the date of founding the first translating institution. The quality of Czech translation and its differences in contrast to previous two are evident with the Treaty of Lisbon. Treaty of Lisbon was drafted while the Czech Republic had already ensured qualified translators. As Mr. Xxxxx noted, all legal documents had to be translated quickly after the entrance the CR to the EU (2018), and this quick need of translation could have caused major discrepancies in first two documents. This statement also corresponds to results of the discourse analysis.
It is necessary to realize that this work is analysing only a part of the selected documents and the conclusions need to be perceived as partial. To draw complex conclusions, it is necessary first to perform a discourse analysis of the selected documents as a whole and then to complete their complete evaluation.
In conclusion, it should also be noted that the research carried out during the examined period showed the clear progress of the legal language and the translation services. As a result of this progress, it can be said that the European Union supports the development of multilingualism and it gives the power to its motto "unity in diversity."
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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
CZ CR EC ECSC EEC EN EU | Czech Czech Republic European Community European Coal and Steel Community European Economic Community English European Union |
IATE | Interactive Terminology for Europe |
IT TEC TFEU | Italian Treaty establishing the European Community Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union |
LIST OF TABLES
Table 1: Text-structuring patterns 22
Table 2: Structure of documents 34
Table 3: Differences in EN and CZ versions of the Treaty of Paris 35
Table 4: Most frequent vocabulary both Czech and English versions of documents.36 Table 5: Legal terminology 37
Table 6: The occurrence of words of French origin. 39
Table 7: The occurrence of words of French origin with its equivalents 40
Table 9: Number of sentences in documents 41
Table 10: Usage of articles in English versions of documents 42
Table 11: The most common proper names used in documents 43
Table 12: Text-structuring patterns 45
Table 14: Occurrence of modal verbs 47
Table 15. References in text 50
Table 16: Conjunction references 52
APPENDICES
P1 Treaty establishing the European Coal and Steel Community P2 Smlouva o založení Evropského společenství uhlí a oceli
P3 Treaty on European Union P4 Smlouva o Evropské Unii
P5 Consolidated version of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union P6 Konsolidované znění smlouvy o fungování Evropské Unie