Speaker
Description
The present study aims to explore the features of the EU legal vocabulary of the case-law judgments of the CJEU. The research aims to describe the lexis whose mastery is requisite for lawyers of an EU member state to communicate internationally – within the EU. Lawyer’s work often involves reading case-law judgments which are syntactically complex texts and contain remarkably technical vocabulary which may be arduous for non-native lawyers. Although lawyers largely find the principles and concepts intelligible, the legal vocabulary may be a major problem. This study provides an analytical approach to the fundamental vocabulary of case-law judgments using AntGram software to identify the most frequent words and word clusters in a corpus of approximately 150,000 words consisting of case-law judgments on free movement of workers covering the last ten years from 2012 to 2022. The study reveals the most frequent lexical elements and collocations and their most common use in the judgments. The pedagogical applicability of the study is that its results may be used for the development of a special English language coursebook and extra materials for EU legal English courses – the findings are used to build tasks and exercises to familiarise students with the specialised vocabulary of the case-law judgments.
Affiliation of the author(s)
University of Latvia
Biographical note(s) of the author(s)
Laimdota Ločmele is an Assistant Professor of Applied Linguistics at the Centre for Applied Linguistics at the University of Latvia, Riga, Latvia. Academic and research interests: English for Specific Purposes, Text Semiotics, Cross-Cultural Communication.
| Contact e-mail address | laimdota.locmele@lu.lv |
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