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Part of
Handbook of Terminology: Volume 3. Legal Terminology
Edited by Łucja Biel and Hendrik J. Kockaert
[Handbook of Terminology 3] 2023
► pp. 244–270

Legal terminology of the European Union

This chapter addresses EU (European Union) language and terminology, commencing with the EU legal context. EU law constitutes a legal order created by agreement between Member States under international law. This legal order creates the context for terms, with legal texts as the sites of engagement, each containing different domains of terminology. The EU legal order is multilingual, and each text comprises a single multilingual message. This singularity generates pressure towards equivalence in meaning with consequences for drafting, translation, and terminology. Implications and examples are drawn from environmental law. Meanings are determined by the Court of Justice of the European Union. EU legal language and terminology is amenable to analysis through the use of corpora. Terminological information is recorded and diffused via IATE.

Keywords: legal terminology, EU, lexicography, corpora, IATE
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.EU legal order
    • 2.1EU legal order
    • 2.2EU agreements
    • 2.3EU legal order as context for terms
    • 2.4EU legal texts as sites of engagement
  • 3.Terminology domains in EU legislative texts
    • 3.1EU drafting
    • 3.2Multilingualism
    • 3.3Environmental law: A recent field of law
  • 4.Formation of legal terminology
    • 4.1Terminology and the CJEU
    • 4.2Corpora and legal terminology in the EU context
    • 4.3IATE
      • 4.3.1History of the model
      • 4.3.2Problems with the model
        • 1.A lack of reliability
        • 2.Problems involving the ownership of terms
        • 3.Gaps in the coverage
        • 4.Duplication of entries
        • 5.Difficulties sourcing terms, references and definitions
      • 4.3.3IATE 2
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives (CC BY-ND) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at [email protected].

Published online: 1 December 2023
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/hot.3.leg2
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