Language and the Institutional Dynamics of the Court of Justice of the European Communities: Lawyer-Linguists and the Production of a Multilingual Jurisprudence

Gueldry M (ed) How Globalizing Professions Deal With National Languages: Studies in Cultural Conflict and Cooperation, Lewiston, Queenstown, Lampeter: The Edwin Mellen Press, 2010, 239-263

22 Pages Posted: 22 Mar 2013

See all articles by Karen McAuliffe

Karen McAuliffe

University of Birmingham - Birmingham Law School; Université du Luxembourg

Date Written: 2008

Abstract

The role of language and translation in the production of the jurisprudence of the Court of Justice (and Court of First Instance) of the European Communities is a significant one. That multilingual jurisprudence consists mainly of collegiate judgments drafted by jurists in a language that is generally not their mother tongue; it also undergoes many permutations of translation into/out of up to 23 different languages and thus is necessarily shaped by the particular way in which the Court of Justice works and by the actors within it. This paper considers the role played by language in the institutional dynamics of the Court of Justice, focusing in particular on those whose job it is to translate the jurisprudence of that Court, the lawyer-linguists. Based on qualitative data largely obtained from empirical fieldwork research, the first part of the paper considers the role of the Court’s lawyer-linguists prior to the 'mega-enlargement' of the European Union in 2004; the second part of the paper focuses on the implications of enlargement within the Court of Justice and considers whether such enlargement requires the rethinking of existing problematics and the development of new ways of functioning for that institution.

Keywords: multilingual jurisprudence, legal translation, institutions, institutional dynamics, lawyer-linguists, jurilinguists, jurilinguistics

Suggested Citation

McAuliffe, Karen, Language and the Institutional Dynamics of the Court of Justice of the European Communities: Lawyer-Linguists and the Production of a Multilingual Jurisprudence (2008). Gueldry M (ed) How Globalizing Professions Deal With National Languages: Studies in Cultural Conflict and Cooperation, Lewiston, Queenstown, Lampeter: The Edwin Mellen Press, 2010, 239-263, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2208744

Karen McAuliffe (Contact Author)

University of Birmingham - Birmingham Law School ( email )

Edgbaston
Birmingham, AL B15 2TT
United Kingdom

Université du Luxembourg ( email )

L-1511 Luxembourg
Luxembourg

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