Chapter published in:
Observing Eurolects: Corpus analysis of linguistic variation in EU law
Edited by Laura Mori
[Studies in Corpus Linguistics 86] 2018
► pp. 170–198

Observing Eurolects

The case of Greek

| Ionian University
| Ionian University
| Ionian University
The present paper presents the findings from the analysis of the Greek corpus of European Union directives spanning the years 1999–2008 (corpus A) and the corpus of the legal instruments used to transpose them into Greek law (corpus B). The aim of the analysis is to verify the existence of a Greek Eurolect, born through translation, and to highlight the differences between this new legal variety and the corresponding Greek legal variety. The findings of the study are particularly interesting as they point to the existence of a Greek Eurolect characterised by Europeisms on a lexical level; morphosyntactic preferences which do not conform to the Greek legal language conventions and norms; an extensive use of the future tense as a result of translating English shall into Greek; and an oscillation between the use of Κatharevousa and Demotiki, that is an H-variety and an L-variety of the Greek language.
Keywords: Greek Eurolect, Greek legal language, EU legal texts, hybridity, multi-method approach
Published online: 06 December 2018
https://doi.org/10.1075/scl.86.08sos
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