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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. 289–309

Visualizing EU law through meta-concepts and legal formants

| Trento University

The chapter suggests an interdisciplinary approach to EU law and to European autonomous concepts, through the use of comparative law and semiotics. The object of the research is the EU legislation (a meta-language, in comparative-semiotics perspective), EU concepts (a system of signs, according to semiotics) and their interpretation (case law formant, in comparative law analyses) and transposition (national legislation formant) in the Member States. This approach to EU law and concepts highlights that the interrelation between EU legislation and the normative forces grounding the practices of law in Europe are giving rise to common contexts of meanings in the European legal setting.

Keywords: EU law, terminology, comparative law, meta-concepts, legal formants
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.EU concepts in the Member States
  • 3.Comparative law and legal formants
  • 4.Semiotics and the meta-concept
  • 5.Meta-concepts and EU formants: A case study of EU Framework Directive 2008/98 on waste (2018 version)
  • 6.Conclusions
  • 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.vis1
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