Terminological variation and conceptual divergence in EU Law

Martina Bajčić
Table of contents

1.Introduction

Both terminological variation and conceptual divergence can be detrimental to the uniform application and interpretation of the law. In particular multilingual legal environments such as the EU are at risk of a lack of conceptual congruence due to the inherent cultural differences between the Member States and a still underdeveloped common European legal culture. However, even if terminological congruence and consistency is upheld in EU legislative texts, conceptual divergence can nevertheless be manifested in varying interpretations of EU concepts at the level of the Member States. Underlining the distinction between terminological variation and conceptual divergence, we depart from a corpus-informed and legal analysis of the terms used for the concept of right of withdrawal in several EU languages in order to explain the phenomena of term variation and meaning modulations (polysemy) that are present in EU legal language, thus demonstrating that specialized language is also subject to variation, although in a subtle way.

In the domain of EU law, terminological variation accounts for a prominent new line of terminology investigation for a twofold reason. On the one hand, the increased use of corpora has put the spotlight on term variation enabling big-scale interlinguistic and intralinguistic studies of variants in EU law (e.g. Biel 2014Biel, Łucja 2014Lost in the Eurofog: The Textual Fit of Translated Law. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang. DOI logoGoogle Scholar; Mori 2018Mori, Laura 2018Observing Eurolects: Corpus Analysis of Linguistic Variation in EU law. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar; Peruzzo 2010Peruzzo, Katia 2010 “Horizontal Denominative Variation in an EU Victim-related English-Italian Parallel Corpus.” Rivista internazionale di tecnica della traduzione = International Journal of Translation 12:177–188.Google Scholar; Potrandolfo 2020Potrandolfo, Gianluca 2020 “National and EU Judicial Phraseology under the Magnifying Glass: a Corpus-assisted Analysis of Complex Prepositions in Spanish.” Perspectives 29(2):260–277. DOI logoGoogle Scholar). On the other hand, studying variants has allowed terminologists to further challenge some of the basic principles of the traditional terminology theory (e.g. Peruzzo 2010Peruzzo, Katia 2010 “Horizontal Denominative Variation in an EU Victim-related English-Italian Parallel Corpus.” Rivista internazionale di tecnica della traduzione = International Journal of Translation 12:177–188.Google Scholar; Temmerman 2020Temmerman, Rita 2020 “Terminology across Languages: Researching Neologisms and Terminological Variation in Multilingual Settings.” In Svijet od riječi. Terminološki i leksikografski ogledi [A World of Words: Terminological and Lexicographical Perspectives], edited by Ivana Brač and Ana Ostroški Anić, 119–135. Zagreb: Institut za hrvatski jezik i jezikoslovlje.Google Scholar). From the viewpoint of descriptive terminology approaches which tend to study terms and concepts in context, paying attention to the dynamic aspects of language and understanding, variation is a recurrent theme (Temmerman 2020Temmerman, Rita 2020 “Terminology across Languages: Researching Neologisms and Terminological Variation in Multilingual Settings.” In Svijet od riječi. Terminološki i leksikografski ogledi [A World of Words: Terminological and Lexicographical Perspectives], edited by Ivana Brač and Ana Ostroški Anić, 119–135. Zagreb: Institut za hrvatski jezik i jezikoslovlje.Google Scholar, 125), while the circulation of knowledge and the movement of terms is at the centre of socioterminology (Delavigne 2017Delavigne, Valérie 2017 “Term Usage and Socioterminological Variation. The Impact of Social and Local Issues on the Movement of Terms.” In Multiple Perspectives on Terminological Variation, edited by Patrick Drouin, Aline Francœur, John Humbley and Aurélie Picton, 31–55. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar, 33). Observed in this light, studying variants is a logical consequence of the development of terminology (Humbley and Picton 2017Humbley, John and Aurélie Picton 2017 “Introduction: Multiple perspectives on terminological variation.” In Multiple Perspectives on Terminological Variation, edited by Patrick Drouin, Aline Francœur, John Humbley and Aurélie Picton, 1–11. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar, 128). By the same token, studying variants in EU law can not only further the development of terminology, but also contribute to a better understanding of EU law and its concepts.

With this in mind, the present chapter sets off by describing the main features of EU terms (Section 2), sketching the institutional context in which EU terms are used and translated. Special attention is paid to the prominent role of EU legal English in the law-making and translation procedure and to the institutional preference for neutral terms in EU legislative texts. The occurrence of synonymy and polysemy in EU legislative texts is discussed in this context both from the perspective of traditional, knowledge-based terminology theory and the lexicon-based approaches. Section 3 shifts the focus of attention on the EU concept of the right of withdrawal. Following a diachronic analysis of the terms used to render this concept, the results of a corpus-based analysis of English, German and Croatian terms for the right of withdrawal are compared and discussed. Maintaining the distinction between terminological variation and conceptual divergence, it is proposed to extend the context of studying variants in regard to possibly different interpretations of a concept (conceptual divergence). It is argued that especially in the context of directives, variants can result in conceptual divergence and need to be observed through the lens of the indirect legal effect of directives and the principle of consistent interpretation. Likewise, investigating variation beyond legislative texts, i.e. by including different types of corpora would enable insight into the role played by term variants in the framing of legal information for multiple user groups. In light of the results of the present study, this type of functionally caused (Freixa 2006 2006 “Causes of Denominative Variation in Terminology. A Typology Proposal.” Terminology 12(1):51–77.Google Scholar) idiosyncratic variation (Delavigne 2017Delavigne, Valérie 2017 “Term Usage and Socioterminological Variation. The Impact of Social and Local Issues on the Movement of Terms.” In Multiple Perspectives on Terminological Variation, edited by Patrick Drouin, Aline Francœur, John Humbley and Aurélie Picton, 31–55. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar, 34) could prove an important tool in legal design and better law-making.

2.EU terms

EU terms can be described as supranational legal terms in view of the fact that they are used in the legal environment of a supranational organization (Biel and Doczekalska 2020Biel, Łucja and Agnieszka Doczekalska 2020 “How do Supranational Terms Transfer into National Legal Systems? A Corpus-informed Study of EU English Terminology in Consumer Protection Directives and UK, Irish and Maltese Transposing Acts.” Terminology 26(2):184–212.Google Scholar, 185). At the same time, however, they are applied within the national legal systems of the Member States. In so far, they exist in a double legal environment (Biel and Sosoni 2019Biel, Łucja and Vilelmini Sosoni 2019 “EU Legal Culture and Translation in the Era of Globalisation. The Hybridisation of EU Terminology on the Example of Competition Law.” In Legal Linguistics Beyond Borders: Language and Law in a World of Media, Globalisation and Social Conflicts, edited by Friedemann Vogel, 207–228. Berlin: Duncker & Humblot.Google Scholar, 216) and are marked by their multilingual nature, consistency (of use) and (presumed) autonomy of meaning (Biel and Doczekalska 2020Biel, Łucja and Agnieszka Doczekalska 2020 “How do Supranational Terms Transfer into National Legal Systems? A Corpus-informed Study of EU English Terminology in Consumer Protection Directives and UK, Irish and Maltese Transposing Acts.” Terminology 26(2):184–212.Google Scholar, 187).

The multilingual feature of EU terms manifests in their co-existing in 24 official languages, which is referred to as multilingual concordance (DGT 2016Directorate-General for Translation (DGT), European Commission 2016Strategic Plan 2016–2020. DG Translation. Ref. Ares(2016)1329034 – 16/03/2016. Available at https://​ec​.europa​.eu​/info​/sites​/info​/files​/strategic​-plan​-2016​-2020​-dg​-t​_march2016​_en​.pdf. Accessed 19 March 2021., 4); interlinguistic concordance (Prieto Ramos 2014Prieto Ramos, Fernando 2014 “International and supranational law in translation: from multilingual lawmaking to adjudication.” The Translator 20(3):313–331. DOI logoGoogle Scholar, 317) or the horizontal dimension (Robertson 2015 2015 “EU Multilingual Law: Interfaces of Law, Language and Culture.” In Language and Culture in EU Law. Multidisciplinary Perspectives, edited by Susan Šarčević, 33–53. London: Routledge.Google Scholar, 44). This implies that all language versions should convey the same meaning so that texts can be interpreted and applied in a uniform way and produce the same legal effect (DGT 2016Directorate-General for Translation (DGT), European Commission 2016Strategic Plan 2016–2020. DG Translation. Ref. Ares(2016)1329034 – 16/03/2016. Available at https://​ec​.europa​.eu​/info​/sites​/info​/files​/strategic​-plan​-2016​-2020​-dg​-t​_march2016​_en​.pdf. Accessed 19 March 2021., 4). Multilingual concordance evokes a synchronized relationship between interlinked language versions and covers the relation between the translation and the other language versions (Biel 2019Biel, Łucja 2019 “Theoretical and Methodological Challenges in Researching EU Legal Translation.” In Legal Translation. Current Issues and Challenges in Research, Methods and Applications, edited by Ingrid Simonnæs and Marita Kristiansen. Frank & Timme. Berlin. 25–39.Google Scholar).

Concordance is interlinked with the need to ensure that EU terms are used consistently both intertextually and intratextually in EU legislation. Indeed, consistent usage of EU terms is the cornerstone of EU drafting and translation guidelines. The Joint Practical Guide of the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission for persons involved in the drafting of European Union legislation within the EU institutions states that the terminology used in a given act shall be consistent both internally and with acts already in force, especially in the same field; while identical concepts should be expressed in the same terms (Joint Practical Guide 2015 2015 “Basic Principles of Term Formation in the Multilingual and Multicultural Context of EU Law.” In Language and Culture in EU Law. Multidisciplinary Perspectives, edited by Susan Šarčević, 183–207. London: Routledge.Google Scholar, 21). Accordingly, a distinction is made between formal consistency of terms and substantive consistency which means terminology must also be checked with regard to the content of the act itself (Joint Practical Guide 2015 2015 “Basic Principles of Term Formation in the Multilingual and Multicultural Context of EU Law.” In Language and Culture in EU Law. Multidisciplinary Perspectives, edited by Susan Šarčević, 183–207. London: Routledge.Google Scholar, 21–22).

Finally, (linguistic) autonomy of meaning of EU terms is presumed by the supranational nature of EU law and primacy of EU law over national law. According to Biel and Doczekalska (2020Biel, Łucja and Agnieszka Doczekalska 2020 “How do Supranational Terms Transfer into National Legal Systems? A Corpus-informed Study of EU English Terminology in Consumer Protection Directives and UK, Irish and Maltese Transposing Acts.” Terminology 26(2):184–212.Google Scholar, 187), autonomy is ensured through institutionally controlled terminological choices (cultural neutralization of terms). This includes avoidance of terms of national law in keeping with the above institutional guideline. This feature of EU terms however is most disputed as it hinges on the issues of meaning, conceptualization and the interpretation of EU concepts. Despite the fact that no EU language is the original language, and by analogy, no conceptual framework is the original conceptual framework (Prechal and van Roermund 2008Prechal, Sacha and Bert van Roermund 2008 “Binding Unity in EU Legal Order: An Introduction.” In The Coherence of EU Law. The Search for Unity in Divergent Concepts, edited by Sacha Prechal and Bert van Roermund, 1–20. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar, 6), in practice we still have common concepts, often in the form of autonomous concepts, or more precisely, concepts that “receive an autonomous interpretation” (Graziadei 2014Graziadei, Michele 2014 “Many Languages for a Single Voice.” In Translating the DCFR and Drafting the CESL. A Pragmatic Perspective, edited by Barbara Pasa and Lucia Morra, 71–84. Munich: Sellier. DOI logoGoogle Scholar, 74) under EU law or by the Court of Justice of the European Union (hereinafter: CJEU). A case in point is the right of withdrawal which will serve as the starting point of this explanatory study of term variants and conceptual divergence in EU law.

2.1The institutional context of EU terms

Based on the principle of multilingualism, legal translation in EU legislative institutions resembles a simultaneous enactment of laws in all official languages known as co-drafting. In practice, however, it is impossible for all language versions to be produced simultaneously. Rather, the translation process – as part of the law-making procedure – involves several distinct stages. After a legal text has been drawn up (in one language) following long negotiations and back-and-forth among experts and politicians, it is translated and, subsequently, legally revised by legal experts. The resulting draft text, also known as the primary text or ‘mastertext’ (Mori 2018Mori, Laura 2018Observing Eurolects: Corpus Analysis of Linguistic Variation in EU law. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar, 6), is supplemented and amended several times. These additions and changes are made in different languages and by different authors (Mori 2018Mori, Laura 2018Observing Eurolects: Corpus Analysis of Linguistic Variation in EU law. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar, 6). Such unprecedented level of heteroglossia in the process of drafting thereby leads to hybrid utterances to the point that it may be difficult to pinpoint the source text (Graziadei 2014Graziadei, Michele 2014 “Many Languages for a Single Voice.” In Translating the DCFR and Drafting the CESL. A Pragmatic Perspective, edited by Barbara Pasa and Lucia Morra, 71–84. Munich: Sellier. DOI logoGoogle Scholar, 73). On the other hand, from the point of view of legal effect and legal certainty, all 24 official EU languages have the same value and status (equal authenticity), as has been repeatedly confirmed by CJEU’s settled case-law (Bajčić 2021b 2021b “Linguistic Comparison within CJEU’s Decision-Making: A Debunking Exercise.” International Journal for the Semiotics Law 34:1433–1449. DOI logoGoogle Scholar). Paradoxically, despite equal authenticity of all EU languages, not all official languages are used as working languages. While English, German and French are preferred as working languages, especially for internal purposes of the institutions, English remains the main language in drafting legislation and political negotiations (Bajčić 2021a 2021a “Anregungen zum Umdenken in der EU-Rechtsterminologie [Rethinking EU Legal Terminology].” In Exploring the Social Dimension of Europe. Essays in Honour of Nada Bodiroga-Vukobrat, edited by Gerald Sander, Ana Pošćić and Adrijana Martinović, 273–283. Hamburg: Verlag Dr. Kovac.Google Scholar, 276–277).

2.1.1The impact of EU English on EU law-making and translation

Although English became an official EU language only in 1973 with the EU accession of the United Kingdom and Ireland, today it is the most widely spoken foreign language in Europe. This became especially clear with the 2004 enlargement, in which ten new Member States joined the EU, thus highlighting the urgency of introducing a common means of communication (Biel and Sosoni 2019Biel, Łucja and Vilelmini Sosoni 2019 “EU Legal Culture and Translation in the Era of Globalisation. The Hybridisation of EU Terminology on the Example of Competition Law.” In Legal Linguistics Beyond Borders: Language and Law in a World of Media, Globalisation and Social Conflicts, edited by Friedemann Vogel, 207–228. Berlin: Duncker & Humblot.Google Scholar, 221) and catapulting English to the status of a lingua franca in the EU. However, considering that English is historically related to Common Law as a legal language, it had to be adapted to supranational EU law, which in turn was influenced by the continental legal systems of the Member States, as well as by Common Law. This resulted, on the one hand, in new English designations or designations of Common Law with a (continental) meaning (Robertson 2012Robertson, Colin 2012 “EU Legal English: Common Law, Civil Law or a New Genre?European Review of Private Law 20(5–6):1215–1239. DOI logoGoogle Scholar, 1233). Often cited examples of EU English neologisms are internal market or pigmeat (Felici 2015 2015 “Translating EU Legislation from a Lingua Franca: Advantages and Disadvantages.” In Language and Culture in EU Law. Multidisciplinary Perspectives, edited by Susan Šarčević, 123–141. London: Routledge.Google Scholar, 127), or expressions that may sound strange to English speakers, such as account preservation order (Bajčić 2018 2018 “The Role of EU Legal English in Shaping EU Legal Culture.” International Journal of Law and Language JLL 7:8–24.Google Scholar, 18). Second, this need for adapting English to EU law coupled with non-native influences on EU English and an increased need to create neologisms (Biel et al. 2018Biel, Łucja, Agnieszka Biernacka, and Anna Jopek-Bosiacka 2018 “Collocations of Terms in EU Competition Law: A Corpus Analysis of EU English Collocations.” In Language and Law. The Role of Language and Translation in EU Competition Law, edited by Silvia Marino, Łucja Biel, Martina Bajčić and Vilelmini Sosoni, 249–275. Cham: Springer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar, 257) resulted in a hybrid version of EU English, which can be described as neutral on account of the linguistic and geographical distance from English in other English-speaking countries. Accordingly, some degree of foreignness and unnaturalness of terms and collocations in EU English is unavoidable (Biel et al. 2018Biel, Łucja, Agnieszka Biernacka, and Anna Jopek-Bosiacka 2018 “Collocations of Terms in EU Competition Law: A Corpus Analysis of EU English Collocations.” In Language and Law. The Role of Language and Translation in EU Competition Law, edited by Silvia Marino, Łucja Biel, Martina Bajčić and Vilelmini Sosoni, 249–275. Cham: Springer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar, 256–257). In addition, the hybridity of EU English is the result of the multilingual and multi-stage drafting and negotiating process described in the preceding subsection (Bajčić 2021a 2021a “Anregungen zum Umdenken in der EU-Rechtsterminologie [Rethinking EU Legal Terminology].” In Exploring the Social Dimension of Europe. Essays in Honour of Nada Bodiroga-Vukobrat, edited by Gerald Sander, Ana Pošćić and Adrijana Martinović, 273–283. Hamburg: Verlag Dr. Kovac.Google Scholar, 275–276; Biel and Sosoni 2019Biel, Łucja and Vilelmini Sosoni 2019 “EU Legal Culture and Translation in the Era of Globalisation. The Hybridisation of EU Terminology on the Example of Competition Law.” In Legal Linguistics Beyond Borders: Language and Law in a World of Media, Globalisation and Social Conflicts, edited by Friedemann Vogel, 207–228. Berlin: Duncker & Humblot.Google Scholar, 216; Felici 2010Felici, Annarita 2010 “Translating EU Law: Legal Issues and Multiple Dynamics.” Perspectives: Studies in Translatology 18(2):95–108. DOI logoGoogle Scholar, 102).

Owing to the prominent role of English in the drafting and the translation process, hybridity and neutralization techniques influence terminology in all EU languages. Likewise, the fact that translators of EU legislation must take into account the multilingual nature of EU legislation by avoiding specific terminology of national legal systems, or using it only cautiously (Joint Practical Guide 2015 2015 “Basic Principles of Term Formation in the Multilingual and Multicultural Context of EU Law.” In Language and Culture in EU Law. Multidisciplinary Perspectives, edited by Susan Šarčević, 183–207. London: Routledge.Google Scholar, 17) results in cultural neutralization of EU terminology (Biel and Sosoni 2019Biel, Łucja and Vilelmini Sosoni 2019 “EU Legal Culture and Translation in the Era of Globalisation. The Hybridisation of EU Terminology on the Example of Competition Law.” In Legal Linguistics Beyond Borders: Language and Law in a World of Media, Globalisation and Social Conflicts, edited by Friedemann Vogel, 207–228. Berlin: Duncker & Humblot.Google Scholar, 216). Furthermore, neutral terms appear more transparent in so far as they promote multilingual concordance. Indeed, many corpus-based analyses of EU legislative texts testify to a preference for neutral terms. For instance, Sosoni’s analysis (2018Sosoni, Vilelmini 2018 “Language and Translation in EU Competition Law: insight from English, Greek, Italian and Spanish Versions of Legislative Texts.” In Language and Law. The Role of Language and Translation in EU Competition Law, edited by Silvia Marino, Łucja Biel, Martina Bajčić and Vilelmini Sosoni, 179–207. Cham: Springer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar, 195) of English terms and their Greek, Spanish and Italian translations revealed three main types of term formation, namely formation through semantic transfer and recontextualization, creation of new terms to name new concepts (neologisms), and translingual borrowing. The results of the analysis show that neologisms, literal equivalents and direct borrowings are preferred to functional equivalents11.In legal translation studies functional equivalent is defined as “a term designating a concept or institution of the target legal system having the same function as a particular concept of the source legal system” (Šarčević 1989Šarčević, Susan 1989Conceptual Dictionaries for Translation in the Field of Law. International Journal of Lexicography, Volume 2, Issue 4, Winter 1989, Pages 277–293, DOI logoGoogle Scholar, 278–279; 1988, 964, cited in Šarčević 1997 1997New Approach to Legal Translation. The Hague: Kluwer Law International.Google Scholar, 236). in 77% of the analysed terms. Mori (2018Mori, Laura 2018Observing Eurolects: Corpus Analysis of Linguistic Variation in EU law. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar, 210) also reports a high percentage of contact-induced phenomena, such as calques, in the Italian Eurolect, i.e. an EU variety of the Italian legal language.22.She categorizes EU-rooted lexical phenomena in the following way: EU-newly-coined words, EU-noun phrase, EU-based metaphors, semantic Europeisms, EU acronyms (Mori 2018Mori, Laura 2018Observing Eurolects: Corpus Analysis of Linguistic Variation in EU law. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar, 209). However, studies conducted in other languages, notably German, demonstrate a countertrend of relying on functional equivalents, i.e. (national law) terms used to denote concepts of national law in EU translation (e.g. Bajčić 2017Bajčić, Martina 2017New Insights into the Semantics of Legal Concepts and the Legal Dictionary. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar, 2018 2018 “The Role of EU Legal English in Shaping EU Legal Culture.” International Journal of Law and Language JLL 7:8–24.Google Scholar; Biel and Doczekalska 2020Biel, Łucja and Agnieszka Doczekalska 2020 “How do Supranational Terms Transfer into National Legal Systems? A Corpus-informed Study of EU English Terminology in Consumer Protection Directives and UK, Irish and Maltese Transposing Acts.” Terminology 26(2):184–212.Google Scholar, 203; Danneman 2014Dannemann, Gerhard 2014 “System Neutrality in Legal Translation.” In Translating the DCFR and Drafting the CESL. A Pragmatic Perspective, edited by Barbara Pasa and Lucia Morra, 119–124. Munich: Sellier. DOI logoGoogle Scholar). Biel and Doczekalska (2020Biel, Łucja and Agnieszka Doczekalska 2020 “How do Supranational Terms Transfer into National Legal Systems? A Corpus-informed Study of EU English Terminology in Consumer Protection Directives and UK, Irish and Maltese Transposing Acts.” Terminology 26(2):184–212.Google Scholar, 203) in their study of EU English terminology in consumer protection directives and UK, Irish and Maltese transposing acts also report of instances of substituting EU terms with national terms (localization).

2.2The curious case of EU synonymy and polysemy

In this context the question is raised whether terms denoting both EU concepts and national law concepts are to be regarded as polysemous. From the perspective of the dogmatic monosemy postulated by the traditional terminology theory (Peruzzo 2010Peruzzo, Katia 2010 “Horizontal Denominative Variation in an EU Victim-related English-Italian Parallel Corpus.” Rivista internazionale di tecnica della traduzione = International Journal of Translation 12:177–188.Google Scholar, 179), polysemy and synonymy were regarded as undesirable linguistic phenomena in specialized texts, undermining the purpose of prescriptive standardization. It should be noted that, for decades, terminology has been rooted in applications, while its theoretical and methodological principles have primarily attempted to answer questions raised by these applications (L’Homme 2020L’Homme, Marie-Claude 2020Lexical Semantics for Terminology. An Introduction. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar, 6). Observed in this light, it is not surprising that synonymy and polysemy were considered detrimental to standardization and the ideal of univocity as a requirement for precise expert communication. However, analysing terms and concepts without thinking of creating a prescriptive terminology database or compiling a specialized dictionary can account for a deeper understanding of the domain in question.

Recent descriptive approaches to terminology put the focus of attention on the study of terms in real texts, harnessing new models to describe the different deviations from the ideal one-to-one relationship between a concept and the term designating it, acknowledging that variation is part of every language. Such models include more nuanced categories of term variants and meaning modulation, allowing for a better understanding of subtle changes affecting terms in specialized texts and the dynamics of domain knowledge.

In this context it is interesting to note that the term withdrawal has multiple meanings, that is, meaning distinctions within the same domain of EU law, demonstrating the presence of polysemy in specialized, EU legislative texts. In addition to the right of withdrawal as used in the context of consumer protection law, the most salient sense of withdrawal at the moment is manifested in the context of the UK’s withdrawal from the EU.33.Agreement on the withdrawal of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland from the European Union and the European Atomic Energy Community OJ C 384I, 12.11.2019, p. 1–177. Such meaning modulations represent a deviation from the more common meaning; they are however, not strong enough to be regarded as polysemy (L’Homme 2020L’Homme, Marie-Claude 2020Lexical Semantics for Terminology. An Introduction. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar, 110).

While terminological variation is closely related to synonymy as a symmetric relation between terms that have the same meaning or very close meanings, it includes a wider range of phenomena where the same concepts can be expressed differently in text (L’Homme 2020L’Homme, Marie-Claude 2020Lexical Semantics for Terminology. An Introduction. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar, 153). In this sense Freixa (2006 2006 “Causes of Denominative Variation in Terminology. A Typology Proposal.” Terminology 12(1):51–77.Google Scholar, 51) uses the label denominative variation, in contrast to conceptual variation which refers to the variation at the level of the concept. Term variants take different linguistic forms such as inflected forms, graphical variants, synonymic and near-synonymic expressions. Even different contextual phenomena affecting the structure of terms (e.g. insertions or omissions) are regarded as variants (L’Homme 2020L’Homme, Marie-Claude 2020Lexical Semantics for Terminology. An Introduction. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar, 153). On the other hand, synonyms belong to the same part of speech and share structural properties. Traditional terminology theory was interested in conceptual synonymy concerned with two terms that refer to the same concept as exact synonymy.44.Wüster (1985Wüster, Eugen [1979] 1985Einführung in die allgemeine Terminologielehre und terminologische Lexikographie [Introduction to General Terminology and Terminological Lexicography]. Copenhagen: Fachsprachliches Zentrum Handelshochschule.Google Scholar, 79–83), as a pioneer in terminology work, introduced the distinction between Einsinnigkeit (‘one sense’) and Eindeutigkeit (‘unambiguousness, having only one meaning’; ‘monosemy’), maintaining that in terminology we should strive for one meaning, rather than one sense. Likewise, he distinguished Mehrsinnigkeit (‘more senses’) from Mehrdeutigkeit (‘more than one meanings’, ‘polysemy’). While Mehrsinnigkeit applies to the entire lexicon of a language, Mehrdeutigkeit refers only to a specialized field (Bajčić 2017Bajčić, Martina 2017New Insights into the Semantics of Legal Concepts and the Legal Dictionary. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar, 52–53). Accordingly, polysemy has been treated as homonymy (when one term denotes two different concepts) in terminological resources. In a pair of exact synonyms member 1 can replace member 2 in all the sentences where member 2 appears. Conversely, member 2 can replace member 1 in all the sentences where member 1 appears. Member 1 and member 2 share all characteristics, that is, everything that characterizes one member of the pair is also valid for the other (L’Homme 2020L’Homme, Marie-Claude 2020Lexical Semantics for Terminology. An Introduction. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar, 161). Needless to say, it is difficult to come across this type of synonymy in real texts. On the other hand, variation, e.g. according to usage within different fields of knowledge warrants further investigation steeped in terminology, lexical semantics and EU law. In this context, the term conceptual variation (Freixa 2002Freixa, Judit 2002La variació ter-minològica: anàlisi de la variaciódenominativa en textos de dife-rent grau d’especialització de l’à-rea de medi ambient. Ph.D. dissertation, Barcelona, Universitat Pompeu Fabra., 54) might be misleading in view of the fact that legal scholars consider that conceptual divergence, unlike linguistic variance, becomes legally meaningful only if, and to the extent that, it functions in arguing for conflicting courses of action ‘according to the law’ (Prechal and van Roermund 2008Prechal, Sacha and Bert van Roermund 2008 “Binding Unity in EU Legal Order: An Introduction.” In The Coherence of EU Law. The Search for Unity in Divergent Concepts, edited by Sacha Prechal and Bert van Roermund, 1–20. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar, 3). In that sense, it poses a risk to the uniform application of EU law. Conversely, conceptual convergence (as a special kind of coherence) can be regarded as the main goal of EU law, as law requires unity or “the perception of movement towards (virtual) unity” (Prechal and van Roermund 2008Prechal, Sacha and Bert van Roermund 2008 “Binding Unity in EU Legal Order: An Introduction.” In The Coherence of EU Law. The Search for Unity in Divergent Concepts, edited by Sacha Prechal and Bert van Roermund, 1–20. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar, 1). For this reason, conceptual divergence cannot be identified by means of a corpus analysis alone, as will be elaborated in the following section.

3.Right of withdrawal

A European standard couched in both national and neutral terms

One of the oldest principles of the law, pacta sunt servanda, postulates that agreements must be kept. In other words, parties must fulfil their contractual duties and the contract must be performed. However, the right of withdrawal, as a relatively novel concept of EU private law, and especially consumer protection law, allows consumers to withdraw from (distance) contracts within the withdrawal period (the so-called cooling off period of 14 days) without citing any grounds and at no cost. In view of the fact that it does not entail the stating of reasons as a requirement to end the contractual relationship, nor does it invoke the liability for damages, it is conceptually different from other related concepts such as termination and rescission of a contract. Adhering to the above mentioned EU drafting and translation guidelines, as a new EU legal concept, it had to be conceptually and terminologically distinguished from similar national terms of the Member States.

3.1Diachronic analysis of terms

Although the fact that the consumer’s right of withdrawal is a new concept of EU consumer law in itself justifies the need to use a distinct, new term in other EU languages to designate this concept (Šarčević and Čikara 2009Šarčević, Susan and Emilia Čikara 2009 “European vs. National Terminology in Croatian Legislation Transposing EU Directives.” Legal Language in Action: Translation, Terminology, Drafting and Procedural Issues, edited by Susan Šarčević, 193–214. Zagreb: Globus.Google Scholar, 204), this has not always been the case. A source of confusion in relation to this concept was its inconsistent rendering in English in some of the older EU directives, such as the Doorstep Selling Directive 85/577/EEC which used the term right of cancellation (in French: le droit de résilier le contrat; in German: das Widerrufsrecht; in Croatian: pravo na otkazivanje ugovora).55.Directive 85/577/EEC to protect consumers in respect of contracts negotiated away from business premises; no longer in force. All of these terms however are used in national legal systems to denote similar or dissimilar existing legal concepts. Likewise, the terms to withdraw and to cancel were used as synonyms in tandem with right to withdraw and right of cancellation (in French: le droit de résiliation, le droit de se rétracter; in German: das Recht vom Vertrag zurückzutreten, das Rücktrittsrecht) in Art. 5 of the Timeshare Directive 94/47/EC. The Croatian version of the latter Directive testifies to even greater terminological variation, as right of cancellation was rendered as pravo otkazivanja and pravo otkaza [in English: right of cancellation and right of termination]; while right to withdraw and withdrawal period as pravo se povući and rok povlačenja [in English: right to withdraw and period of withdrawal]. The lack of consistency has been remedied with the adoption of the 2009 Timeshare Directive, which employed the terminology of the Distance Contracts Directive, namely withdrawal (Baaij 2018Baaij, Jaap C. 2018Legal Integration and Language Diversity: Rethinking Translation in EU Law-making. New York: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar, 209). The German, French and Dutch language versions likewise used consistent terms: Widerruf, rétraction, herroeping. As herroepingsrecht was already being used in the Dutch and Belgian legal systems to indicate the legal act of rescinding an offer of a contract, but not the breaking of a contract, choosing a neologism terugtreding, which was stated in the 1994 Timeshare Directive, would have been better suited to signal the introduction of a new legal construct in the Dutch legal system (Baaij 2018Baaij, Jaap C. 2018Legal Integration and Language Diversity: Rethinking Translation in EU Law-making. New York: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar, 209). The Croatian version of this Directive (and Distance Selling Directive 97/7/EC) used the term pravo odustajanja respectively.

3.2A corpus-informed analysis of English, German and Croatian terms

In order to analyse term variants for this concept we have used parallel concordancing of the EUR-Lex corpus English 2/2016 available in SketchEngine. For this purpose, two subcorpora consisting of ten directives in English and German and in English and Croatian were used. Three of the directives were not available in Croatian in SketchEngine and were therefore analysed separately in the online database of EU legislation EurLex. The directives included in the analysis were identified by conducting a keyword search of the term right of withdrawal in the English EUR-Lex corpus (see Annex).

The results presented in Table 1 show term variants in the Croatian version of the directives only.

Table 1.Comparison of terms in English, German and Croatian
Directive EN DE HR
Directive 2014/17/EU right of withdrawal Widerrufsrecht pravo odustanka
pravo na odustanak
Directive 2011/83/EU right of withdrawal Widerrufsrecht pravo odustajanja
pravo na odustajanje
Directive 2010/73/EU right of withdrawal Widerrufsrecht pravo na povlačenje
Directive 2008/122/EC right of withdrawal Widerrufsrecht pravo na odustajanje
Directive 2009/72/EC right of withdrawal Widerrufsrecht pravo na raskid ugovora
Directive 2008/48/EC right of withdrawal Widerrufsrecht pravo na povlačenje
Directive 2003/55/EC right of withdrawal Widerrufsrecht *
Directive 2003/54/EC right of withdrawal Widerrufsrecht *
Directive 2002/65/EC right of withdrawal Widerrufsrecht pravo odustajanja
Directive 97/7/EC right of withdrawal Widerrufsrecht pravo odustajanja
pravo na odustajanje

We have included directives no longer in force as well in order to observe term variants diachronically. For two of these, Directive 2003/54/EC and Directive 2003/54/EC, the Croatian versions were not available. The German version of Directive 2002/65/EC used both Rücktrittsrecht and Widerrufsrecht before being amended. According to earlier research, the Croatian version of Directive 2002/65/EC available before Croatia’s EU accession used the term pravo istupanja (Šarčević and Čikara 2009Šarčević, Susan and Emilia Čikara 2009 “European vs. National Terminology in Croatian Legislation Transposing EU Directives.” Legal Language in Action: Translation, Terminology, Drafting and Procedural Issues, edited by Susan Šarčević, 193–214. Zagreb: Globus.Google Scholar, 205) which has been replaced by pravo odustajanja. It is regrettable that other inconsistencies in the usage of terminology have not been blotted out as well, so that even today there are different term variants used in different directives. Some of the identified term variants can be regarded as morphosyntactic variation (Peruzzo 2010Peruzzo, Katia 2010 “Horizontal Denominative Variation in an EU Victim-related English-Italian Parallel Corpus.” Rivista internazionale di tecnica della traduzione = International Journal of Translation 12:177–188.Google Scholar, 184), in the sense of different parts of speech patterns, e.g. pravo odustajanja (noun+noun), pravo na odustajanje (noun+preposition+noun) or pravo odustati (noun+verb) in the Croatian version of the Directive 97/7/EC (see Figure 1).

Figure 1.Variants in the Croatian version of Directive 97/7/EC

Similarly, pravo na odustanak (noun+preposition+noun) and pravo odustanka (noun+noun) can be regarded as minor morphosyntactic variations in the Croatian version of Directive 2014/17/EU (see Figure 2.), in view of the fact that they do not cause a semantic change.

Figure 2.Variants in the Croatian version of Directive 2014/17/EU

On the other hand, the term variant pravo na raskid ugovora (see Table 1) could potentially lead to conceptual divergence as it denotes a concept of national civil law of distinct meaning than the EU concept of the right of withdrawal. Using existing national terminology runs the risk that national judges will not apply the term in its EU sense (Šarčević and Čikara 2009Šarčević, Susan and Emilia Čikara 2009 “European vs. National Terminology in Croatian Legislation Transposing EU Directives.” Legal Language in Action: Translation, Terminology, Drafting and Procedural Issues, edited by Susan Šarčević, 193–214. Zagreb: Globus.Google Scholar, 208) as terms already used within a national legal system have a history of judicial interpretation and application (Baaij 2018Baaij, Jaap C. 2018Legal Integration and Language Diversity: Rethinking Translation in EU Law-making. New York: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar, 210). In consequence, the usage of national terms may undermine uniform application of EU law Union-wide.

The variant pravo na povlačenje which was used in the old Timeshare Directive 94/47/EC could also lead to conceptual divergence as the expression povlačenje belongs to ordinary language and is devoid of any legal meaning (Šarčević and Čikara 2009Šarčević, Susan and Emilia Čikara 2009 “European vs. National Terminology in Croatian Legislation Transposing EU Directives.” Legal Language in Action: Translation, Terminology, Drafting and Procedural Issues, edited by Susan Šarčević, 193–214. Zagreb: Globus.Google Scholar, 205). It is thus surprising that it is still used in the Croatian version of Directive 2008/48/EC (see Figure 3).66.The latter term povlačenje is also used in the EU’s terminology database IATE for withdrawal, while the database contains no Croatian terms for right of withdrawal. On the other hand, it entails three German equivalents for the right of withdrawal: Kündigungsrecht, Recht auf Kündigung des Vertrags, Widderufsrecht. https://​iate​.europa​.eu​/home (Accessed 1 February 2022).

Figure 3.Variants in the Croatian version of Directive 2008/48/EC

Interestingly, term variants seem to be present to a greater extent in other types of legislative texts such as judgments, decisions,77.E.g. Kündigungsrecht instead of Widerrufsrecht is used in the German version of the judgment in case C-359/11 Alexandra Schulz v Technische Werke Schussental GmbH und Co. KG and Josef Egbringhoff v Stadtwerke Ahaus GmbH, ECLI:EU:C:2014:2317; in a Commission Decision: State aid – Germany – State aid C 27/07 (ex NN 29/07) – Berlin Schönefeld Airport – Invitation to submit comments pursuant to Article 88(2) of the EC Treaty, OJ C 257, 30.10.2007, p. 16–46. and especially in non-legislative consumer-centred texts, such as forms and websites containing general information for the consumers. In the latter contexts, term variants appear in other languages as well, as the following examples illustrate. For instance, the English version of the website of the European Consumer Centre Network explains the right of withdrawal in words of everyday language: “you have 14 days to change your mind”.88. https://​www​.europe​-consommateurs​.eu​/en​/shopping​-internet​/14​-days​-to​-withdraw​.html (Accessed 1 February 2021) Similarly, the Croatian version of the website follows the English wording and uses everyday language to explain the concept as well (imate pravo da se predomislite),99. http://​ecc​-croatia​.hr​/trgovina​-putem​-interneta/ (Accessed 1 February 2021) whereas the German version of the website refers to the term Widerrufsrecht,1010. https://​www​.evz​.de​/einkaufen​-internet​/online​-einkauf​.html (Accessed 1 February 2021) while the Austrian refers to Rücktrittsrecht.1111. https://​europakonsument​.at​/kaufen​-bestellen​/5226 (Accessed 1 February 2021) As a matter of fact, in Austrian German, the right of withdrawal is rendered by two different designations, namely Widerruf and Rücktritt. While the Consumer Rights Directive uses Widerruf, the Austrian FAGG (Fern- und Auswärtsgeschäfte-Gesetz, in English: Distance Transactions Act) uses Rücktritt; the forms (attached to the Austrian Act) use Widerruf.1212. https://​www​.wko​.at​/service​/wirtschaftsrecht​-gewerberecht​/Ruecktrittsrecht​_bei​_Dienstleistungen​_im​_Internet​.html#heading​_Ruecktritt​_oder​_Widerruf_ (Accessed 1 February 2021) Another interesting example is the Croatian central government portal that uses the term pravo na jednostrani raskid ugovora, that is, national law terms to explain this European consumer standard.1313. https://​gov​.hr​/moja​-uprava​/pravna​-drzava​-i​-sigurnost​/prava​-potrosaca​/zastita​-potrosaca​/prava​-potrosaca​-pri​-kupovini​-na​-daljinu​-ili​-izvan​-poslovnih​-prostorija​/2023 (Accessed 1 February 2021). Designed as the central online platform of the Croatian Government the Portal serves the purpose of enabling citizens to access all information pertaining to the public administration and public services.

However, variation in legally binding instruments such as directives intended to harmonize national contract law has more far-reaching consequences as it can impede the objective of harmonization. This is evident in the case of the transposing Croatian legislation, namely the Croatian Obligations Act (odustati od ugovora and raskinuti ugovor) and the Croatian Consumer Credit Act (pravo na odustanak) which deviate from the terms used in the Croatian versions of the directives they transpose.1414.Obligations Act, Official Gazette “Narodne Novine” Nos. 35/05, 41/08, 125/11, 78/15, 29/18; Consumer Credit Act, Official Gazette “Narodne Novine” Nos. 75/09, 112/12, 143/13, 147/13, 09/15, 78/15, 102/15, 52/16. The Croatian Obligations Act uses the terms odustati of ugovora and raskinuti ugovor (as a national law term) as synonymous, however, these can be considered as meaning modifications, because each is used in a different context. Art. 663 of the Obligations Acts uses the term odustanak od ugovora in relation to transport agreements, while Art. 506 uses odustajanje od ugovora in relation to loan agreements, and raskid ugovora in relation to credit agreements (Art. 1024). In contrast to the consumer’s right of withdrawal, debtors who withdraw from a loan or a credit agreement are liable for damages (Šarčević and Čikara 2009Šarčević, Susan and Emilia Čikara 2009 “European vs. National Terminology in Croatian Legislation Transposing EU Directives.” Legal Language in Action: Translation, Terminology, Drafting and Procedural Issues, edited by Susan Šarčević, 193–214. Zagreb: Globus.Google Scholar, 205–206). The presence of variation in a newer EU language can be attributed to Croatia being the youngest EU Member State and still relatively recent harmonization of legislation and standardization of EU terminology. On the other hand, as previously mentioned, withdraw was replaced with cancel in the transposition of Directive 2011/83/EU into national legislation of Ireland (Biel and Doczekalska 2020Biel, Łucja and Agnieszka Doczekalska 2020 “How do Supranational Terms Transfer into National Legal Systems? A Corpus-informed Study of EU English Terminology in Consumer Protection Directives and UK, Irish and Maltese Transposing Acts.” Terminology 26(2):184–212.Google Scholar, 203) as a country with a longer membership status. This lack of terminological congruence may result in conceptual divergence and varying case-law. Moreover, in case of doubt as to the meaning of a national law provision, national courts must consider the wording of the directive transposed by the national legislation in question pursuant to the principle of consistent interpretation.1515.For more on the principle of consistent interpretation see e.g. Sawyer 2007Sawyer, Katrine 2007 “The Principle of ‘interprétation conforme’: How Far Can or Should National Courts Go when Interpreting National Legislation Consistently with European Community Law?Statute Law Review 28(3):165–181. DOI logoGoogle Scholar. While directives, as opposed to regulations, do not have direct effect, owing to their indirect effect or vertical direct effect (Bettlem 1995Bettlem, Gerrit 1995 “Principle of Indirect Effect of Community Law.” European Review of Private Law 3(1):1–20. DOI logoGoogle Scholar), national law provisions must be interpreted in conformity with them, that is, with EU law. What’s more, the CJEU stated that even recommendations are not devoid of legal effect and that national courts are bound to take them into consideration in order to decide disputes in particular where they are capable of casting light on the interpretation of other provisions of national or EU law.1616.This effect has been called the Grimaldi effect (Bettlem 1995Bettlem, Gerrit 1995 “Principle of Indirect Effect of Community Law.” European Review of Private Law 3(1):1–20. DOI logoGoogle Scholar, 5). Case C-322/88 Grimaldi v Fonds des Maladies Professionnelles [1989] ECR 4407.

3.3Conceptual divergence

Possibly divergent interpretations of right of withdrawal in different languages

As illustrated, some variants do not lead to a semantic change (e.g. morphosyntactic variants), while others may cause conceptual divergence; either because a national law term is used to designate a new EU concept, or the concept is expressed in a general language term devoid of legal meaning. Having common EU concepts is instrumental to promote a common discourse of the community of EU lawyers irrespective of their use of different languages (Engberg 2016Engberg, Jan 2016 “Word Meaning and a Globalized Legal Order.” In The Oxford Handbook of Language and the Law, edited by Peter M. Tiersma and Lawrence M. Solan, 175–187. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar, 171). However, as noted in the introduction, in light of the still developing EU legal culture and lack of a common legal culture and education, conceptual divergence poses a threat to uniform application and interpretation of EU law. Thus far, CJEU’s autonomous interpretation has proven to be the most effective method of achieving conceptual congruence of EU law. A similar point is made by Graziadei (2014Graziadei, Michele 2014 “Many Languages for a Single Voice.” In Translating the DCFR and Drafting the CESL. A Pragmatic Perspective, edited by Barbara Pasa and Lucia Morra, 71–84. Munich: Sellier. DOI logoGoogle Scholar, 74) for whom the doctrine of autonomous meaning reflects the operative necessity to produce a uniform interpretation and application of key provisions of EU law. On the other hand, at the level of the Member States, divergent interpretations are more difficult to identify. National courts and judges still practice law in their vernaculars which reflect both the individual and community experience (the so-called encyclopaedic knowledge) (Ostroški Anić 2019Ostroški Anić, Ana 2019Metafora u terminologiji [Metaphor in Terminology]. Zagreb: Institut za hrvatski jezik i jezikoslovlje.Google Scholar, 9). This can influence the conceptualization of common EU concepts, including the right of withdrawal.

Albeit in some countries (e.g. United Kingdom, Ireland, Belgium, Greece, Sweden) in the event of the withdrawal of consumers, judges would assume that no contract had been concluded, German law recognizes a provisional state of a contract known as schwebende Unwirksamkeit (in English: provisional or pending invalidity) (Baaij 2018Baaij, Jaap C. 2018Legal Integration and Language Diversity: Rethinking Translation in EU Law-making. New York: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar, 211). Within that period of Schwebezeit, i.e. until the cooling-off period expires, a contract is considered neither valid nor invalid. To what extent is the conceptualization of the meaning of the right of withdrawal in EU law in the German language separable from the background of schwebende Unwirksamkeit of contracts? The introduction of a new designation which was not previously used in national law does not guarantee that the perception of the underlying concept is independent of national legal knowledge. Therefore, divergences in the conceptualization of the scope and content of the term cannot be excluded, regardless if national or neutral terms are used to describe the concept in individual EU languages, owing to the fact that language and conceptualization are inseparable. Since meaning is an integral part of human knowledge and cognitive abilities, the meaning of a certain concept is not autonomous; rather, it is construed in relation to our conceptualization and depends on the conceptual structure within which it is situated (Ostroški Anić 2019Ostroški Anić, Ana 2019Metafora u terminologiji [Metaphor in Terminology]. Zagreb: Institut za hrvatski jezik i jezikoslovlje.Google Scholar, 9). As pointed out, such conceptual divergence is only perceived in case-law by applying the relevant EU legal concepts, and cannot be identified by relying on a corpus analysis of designations.

4.Conclusions and directions for future research

EU legal language is often portrayed as a language sui generis marked by hybridity and deviating from the national legal language. Analogously, the ideal terminology of EU law is also distinct from the national terminology used to denote national legal institutions. What is more, EU terminology is to be used consistently both intralingually and interlingually in order to achieve multilingual concordance. Notwithstanding this well-known principle of the institutional drafting guidelines, the present study, relying on both corpus-based and legal analysis, has exposed the presence of the phenomena of term variation and meaning modulations, demonstrating that EU legal language is also subject to variation. Researching variants provides for a better understanding of subtle changes affecting terms in EU legislative texts and the dynamics of domain knowledge. As argued, variation in legally binding instruments can have far-reaching consequences and even lead to conceptual divergence. At the same time, divergences in the conceptualization of the meaning of a term cannot always be resolved by the consistent usage of neutral EU terms. Therefore, instead of trying to neutralize variation, efforts must be made to understand the ways in which variants affect the dynamic conceptualization of EU law by relying on terminology and lexical semantics, as well as on the principles of EU law. Inviting further interdisciplinary research, it is proposed to expand the context of studying term variants in EU law first in regard to conceptual divergence, and second, in regard to legal information design.

First, investigating term variants in relation to conceptual divergence can shed light on the problematic lack of unity of EU law. Despite the fact that conceptual divergence manifests itself first and foremost in the application and interpretation of EU law, exploring potential relations between the existence of term variants and conceptual divergence would enrich the analysis of variants by looking beyond corpora. Needless to say, terminologists rely on corpora to acquire knowledge about the terms and concepts of a field. Therefore, a corpus is considered to be an essential part of terminological analysis since it provides the basic material to support the understanding of terms (L’Homme 2020L’Homme, Marie-Claude 2020Lexical Semantics for Terminology. An Introduction. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar, 34). However, corpora do not contain all the information we need to know about a domain (L’Homme 2020L’Homme, Marie-Claude 2020Lexical Semantics for Terminology. An Introduction. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar, 38). In particular in the domain of EU law the previously mentioned extralinguistic knowledge is required to disambiguate a concept or understand the principles of EU concept formation. This underlines the need for further cross-disciplinary research and theorizing about national vs. EU terms and concepts beyond the paradigm of terminology-as-application, and by relying on lexical semantics and domain knowledge.

Second, term variants can be observed in relation to legal design, i.e. the framing of legal information. It is important to bear in mind that legal information is intended for multiple user groups, including non-lawyers. Considering that variation is associated with a social practice (Delavigne 2017Delavigne, Valérie 2017 “Term Usage and Socioterminological Variation. The Impact of Social and Local Issues on the Movement of Terms.” In Multiple Perspectives on Terminological Variation, edited by Patrick Drouin, Aline Francœur, John Humbley and Aurélie Picton, 31–55. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar, 33), idiosyncratic terminology can be employed to meet the special needs of different user groups. The fact that different types of documents pertaining to the right of withdrawal display different degrees of variants may indeed be a consequence of responding to the different needs of different user groups. In this context Haapio et al. (2021)Haapio, Helena, Thomas D. Barton, and Marcelo Corrales Compagnucci 2021 “Legal Design for the Common Good: Proactive Legal Care by Design.” In Legal Design: Integrating Business, Design and Legal Thinking with Technology, edited by Marcelo Corrales Compagnucci, Helena Haapio, Margaret Hagan & Michael Doherty, 56–81. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. DOI logoGoogle Scholar point to a growing demand of transforming that what was drafted by lawyers for lawyers to that which is designed to be understandable for the people impacted, in this case consumers. As a matter of fact, Directive 2011/83 on consumer rights points to this direction by regulating the form of mandatory information disclosures and stating that consumers need to receive mandatory information in a clear and comprehensible manner (Art. 6 (1)), whereas this information needs to be drafted in plain and intelligible language (Art. 8 (1)). Observed in this light, variants can be regarded as central to terminological negotiations (Delavigne 2017Delavigne, Valérie 2017 “Term Usage and Socioterminological Variation. The Impact of Social and Local Issues on the Movement of Terms.” In Multiple Perspectives on Terminological Variation, edited by Patrick Drouin, Aline Francœur, John Humbley and Aurélie Picton, 31–55. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar, 33), and an instrumental tool for framing legal information in a more consumer-centric way, thus warranting further research into non-legislative text types as well.

Notes

1.In legal translation studies functional equivalent is defined as “a term designating a concept or institution of the target legal system having the same function as a particular concept of the source legal system” (Šarčević 1989Šarčević, Susan 1989Conceptual Dictionaries for Translation in the Field of Law. International Journal of Lexicography, Volume 2, Issue 4, Winter 1989, Pages 277–293, DOI logoGoogle Scholar, 278–279; 1988, 964, cited in Šarčević 1997 1997New Approach to Legal Translation. The Hague: Kluwer Law International.Google Scholar, 236).
2.She categorizes EU-rooted lexical phenomena in the following way: EU-newly-coined words, EU-noun phrase, EU-based metaphors, semantic Europeisms, EU acronyms (Mori 2018Mori, Laura 2018Observing Eurolects: Corpus Analysis of Linguistic Variation in EU law. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar, 209).
3.Agreement on the withdrawal of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland from the European Union and the European Atomic Energy Community OJ C 384I, 12.11.2019, p. 1–177.
4.Wüster (1985Wüster, Eugen [1979] 1985Einführung in die allgemeine Terminologielehre und terminologische Lexikographie [Introduction to General Terminology and Terminological Lexicography]. Copenhagen: Fachsprachliches Zentrum Handelshochschule.Google Scholar, 79–83), as a pioneer in terminology work, introduced the distinction between Einsinnigkeit (‘one sense’) and Eindeutigkeit (‘unambiguousness, having only one meaning’; ‘monosemy’), maintaining that in terminology we should strive for one meaning, rather than one sense. Likewise, he distinguished Mehrsinnigkeit (‘more senses’) from Mehrdeutigkeit (‘more than one meanings’, ‘polysemy’). While Mehrsinnigkeit applies to the entire lexicon of a language, Mehrdeutigkeit refers only to a specialized field (Bajčić 2017Bajčić, Martina 2017New Insights into the Semantics of Legal Concepts and the Legal Dictionary. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar, 52–53). Accordingly, polysemy has been treated as homonymy (when one term denotes two different concepts) in terminological resources.
5.Directive 85/577/EEC to protect consumers in respect of contracts negotiated away from business premises; no longer in force.
6.The latter term povlačenje is also used in the EU’s terminology database IATE for withdrawal, while the database contains no Croatian terms for right of withdrawal. On the other hand, it entails three German equivalents for the right of withdrawal: Kündigungsrecht, Recht auf Kündigung des Vertrags, Widderufsrecht. https://​iate​.europa​.eu​/home (Accessed 1 February 2022).
7.E.g. Kündigungsrecht instead of Widerrufsrecht is used in the German version of the judgment in case C-359/11 Alexandra Schulz v Technische Werke Schussental GmbH und Co. KG and Josef Egbringhoff v Stadtwerke Ahaus GmbH, ECLI:EU:C:2014:2317; in a Commission Decision: State aid – Germany – State aid C 27/07 (ex NN 29/07) – Berlin Schönefeld Airport – Invitation to submit comments pursuant to Article 88(2) of the EC Treaty, OJ C 257, 30.10.2007, p. 16–46.
13. https://​gov​.hr​/moja​-uprava​/pravna​-drzava​-i​-sigurnost​/prava​-potrosaca​/zastita​-potrosaca​/prava​-potrosaca​-pri​-kupovini​-na​-daljinu​-ili​-izvan​-poslovnih​-prostorija​/2023 (Accessed 1 February 2021). Designed as the central online platform of the Croatian Government the Portal serves the purpose of enabling citizens to access all information pertaining to the public administration and public services.
14.Obligations Act, Official Gazette “Narodne Novine” Nos. 35/05, 41/08, 125/11, 78/15, 29/18; Consumer Credit Act, Official Gazette “Narodne Novine” Nos. 75/09, 112/12, 143/13, 147/13, 09/15, 78/15, 102/15, 52/16.
15.For more on the principle of consistent interpretation see e.g. Sawyer 2007Sawyer, Katrine 2007 “The Principle of ‘interprétation conforme’: How Far Can or Should National Courts Go when Interpreting National Legislation Consistently with European Community Law?Statute Law Review 28(3):165–181. DOI logoGoogle Scholar.
16.This effect has been called the Grimaldi effect (Bettlem 1995Bettlem, Gerrit 1995 “Principle of Indirect Effect of Community Law.” European Review of Private Law 3(1):1–20. DOI logoGoogle Scholar, 5). Case C-322/88 Grimaldi v Fonds des Maladies Professionnelles [1989] ECR 4407.

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Annex

List of Directives covered by the analysis

Directive 2014/17/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 4 February 2014 on credit agreements for consumers relating to residential immovable property and amending Directives 2008/48/EC and 2013/36/EU and Regulation (EU) No 1093/2010, OJ L 60, 28.2.2014, p. 34–85

Directive 2011/83/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 25 October 2011 on consumer rights, amending Council Directive 93/13/EEC and Directive 1999/44/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council and repealing Council Directive 85/577/EEC and Directive 97/7/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council, OJ L 304, 22.11.2011, p. 64–88

Directive 2010/73/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 24 November 2010 amending Directives 2003/71/EC on the prospectus to be published when securities are offered to the public or admitted to trading and 2004/109/EC on the harmonisation of transparency requirements in relation to information about issuers whose securities are admitted to trading on a regulated market, OJ L 327, 11.12.2010, p. 1–12

Directive 2008/122/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 14 January 2009 on the protection of consumers in respect of certain aspects of timeshare, long-term holiday product, resale and exchange contracts, OJ L 33, 3.2.2009, p. 10–30

Directive 2009/72/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 13 July 2009 concerning common rules for the internal market in electricity and repealing Directive 2003/54/EC, no longer in force

Directive 2008/48/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 April 2008 on credit agreements for consumers and repealing Council Directive 87/102/EEC, OJ L 133, 22.5.2008, p. 66–92

Directive 2003/55/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 26 June 2003 concerning common rules for the internal market in natural gas and repealing Directive 98/30/EC, OJ L 176, 15.7.2003, p. 57–78, no longer in force

Directive 2003/54/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 26 June 2003 concerning common rules for the internal market in electricity and repealing Directive 96/92/EC – Statements made with regard to decommissioning and waste management activities, no longer in force

Directive 2002/65/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 September 2002 concerning the distance marketing of consumer financial services and amending Council Directive 90/619/EEC and Directives 97/7/EC and 98/27/EC, OJ L 271, 9.10.2002, p. 16–24

Directive 97/7/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 May 1997 on the protection of consumers in respect of distance contracts, no longer in force