Language-bound terms—term-bound languages: the difficulties of translating a national civil code into a lingua franca

The present paper—taking the example of the English translation of the Hungarian Civil Code of 2013—aims to give an overview on the legal and terminology-related challenges and pitfalls that might occur during the process of translating a civil code with civil law traditions into the language of the common law world. An attempt is made to categorise terminology-related conceptual problems and elaborate how the different types of translation methods (functional equivalence, paraphrasing and neologism) could be applied; moreover, how a kind of legal-linguistic checks-and-balances can be achieved through the well-dosed combination, having also the ratio of similarities to differences (SD-ratio or SD-relationship) of legal concepts behind the respective terms in mind. Legal translators must act beyond the role of a simple translator: they must be comparatists, being aware of the legal origin of the relevant concepts and using the methods of comparative private law and translation studies at the same time, since both law and language are system-bound and are heavily influenced by the cultural and social environment. The authors strive to identify the significance of those problems (and possible solutions) from the perspective of how language-related aspects can perform some fine-tuning on the comparative methodology and findings, whether they are barriers only or provide also an opportunity to verify or refute prima facie comparative results. Comparative law—no doubt—supports legal translation, but their relationship is reciprocal: legal-linguistic subjects and problems emerging in the course of legal translation supply valuable feedback and further sources of inspiration.

     

Stratégies syndicales et renouvellement des élites: le syndicat FTMH face à la crise des années 1990

En nous centrant sur le cas de la FTMH entre 1970 et 2004, nous analysons l'adaptation des syndicats dans le contexte de leur affaiblissement au cours des années 1990. Selon nous, l'affaiblissement du syndicat dans la sphère économique a donné lieu à un déplacement de l'action syndicale vers la sphère politique. Il est possible de dégager deux axes dans la redéfinition de la stratégie de la FTMH, dont le premier concerne le renouvellement des élites: des nouveaux dirigeants, universitaires et marqués par leur appartenance au PSS, remplacent les “élites traditionnelles” du syndicat. Ce renouvellement a appuyé un deuxième changement: un nouveau rapport à l'état et une diversification des registres d'action du syndicat. Les négociations collectives s'accompagnent désormais de stratégies de politisation, mais aussi de mobilisations, ainsi que d'une volonté de s'assurer une meilleure visibilité médiatique. L'ensemble de ces évolutions témoignent d'un rapprochement avec le PSS.     

Am I Respected or Not?: Inclusion and Reputation as Issues in Group Membership

Six studies examined why and when respect vs. disrespect influences people’s emotions, self-worth, and behavior. Following relational models of justice, we argued that people use groups to derive information about the social self and as such value respect information because it indicates (a) whether or not they are accepted, and (b) how their status within the group is evaluated. These two identity concerns were operationalized by means of reinforcing people’s desire to belong (i.e., the identity concern of acceptance) and concern for reputation (i.e., the identity concern of one’s status evaluation). In line with predictions, the first three studies demonstrated that respect matters only among those whose concerns to belong are made salient. Studies 4–6 further showed that respect only influenced reactions among those who have strong concerns for reputation. It is concluded that respect communicates information relevant to people’s identity concerns—i.e., inclusion and reputation.     

US concept wars,civil liberties and the technologies of fortification

The horrific events of September 11, 2001 led to calls for the deployment of state-of-the-art security systems and the creation of an “invisible shieldȁd; to protect America. Such proposals immediately triggered debate about the constitutional ethics of surveillance in the United States. While there has been widespread support for the surrender of some cherished civil liberties in the war against terror, surveillance, especially the visual variety, is still seen to be innately un-American. Technologies like biometric face recognition systems, critics argue, are not consistent with the values of an open society and should consequently be considered with great caution. The widespread introduction of such invasive technology, pundits claim, would signal a victory for the terrorists.Many American commentators fail to recognize, however, that the United States, far from being the open society they imagine, has long been characterized by exclusion. Moreover, such exclusion is increasingly enforced by the same high technology of which biometrics is a part. In fact, for at least a decade before the declaration of the war on terror, the United States has been undergoing a multifaceted process of fortification both within its cities and at the US-Mexican frontier. Investigation of this phenomena reveals the central role of the US’s longest running concept war, the war on drugs. This paper argues that within this narrative biometric surveillance and the creation of “an invisible wallȁd; should not be regarded as a break with American traditions but as the next organic phase of an ongoing process of fortifying the United States.     

Zwischen Ökonomie und Politik. Zur diskursiven Konstruktion des Begriffs „Sozialmodell“ im Sarkozy-Wahlkampf 2005–2007

In “general economic-political discourses”, actors from the spheres of politics, economics and mass media struggle over the valid perception of the relations between the economy, politics, and society as a whole. The discourse on the “modèle sociale français“ provides a case in point: A concept that had been associated for many years with the economic success of the fifth republic, but in the 2000s became a central element of a crisis-rhetoric that helped to pave the way for the reform agenda of Nicolas Sarkozy. Building on this example, the article analyzes how economic-political discourses are established and transformed. On the one side, it reflects upon the importance of discourse research for economic sociology in general; on the other, it shows how general economic-political discourses help to legitimize certain positions in public debates, and how they depict specific scientific problems as relevant for society. Mediators of public and scientific debates benefit from this, just as political and economic actors do as they generate public approval for their corresponding reform-agendas.     

Ethnic diversity and its spatial change in Latvia, 1897–2011

Utilizing data from five census enumerations of Latvia (including the most recent 2011 census), this study analyzes temporal and spatial trends in ethnic diversity in the country at the national and municipal levels. The measure employed, the ethnic diversity index (EDI), makes possible a more sophisticated interpretation of the dynamics of ethnic diversity than an analysis of the changing percentage shares of Latvia's various ethnic groups over time. At the national level, a trend of declining ethnic diversity prior to Latvia's incorporation into the Soviet Union was followed by a rapid increase during the Soviet period, before the onset of gradually decreasing diversity during the post-Soviet period. These national-level trends obscure a number of trends evident at the municipal level, including salient (depending on the period) ethnic diversity gradients Rīga–Latvia, cities/towns–countryside, and the east–west. Latvia remains one of the most ethnically diverse countries of Europe, and the study outlines some of the implications of the recent stagnation of regional EDIs at rather high levels for the economic and political life of the country.     

What do ESDP actors want? An exploratory analysis

Abstract

This paper analyzes the preferences of European defense actors vis-à-vis the European security and defense policy (ESDP) with a view to identifying the main ideational points of convergence and fault lines that structure this policy domain. In an exploratory analysis that relies on an original data-set compiled from systematic interviews conducted with 73 ESDP actors in France, the UK, Germany, and Brussels, we address two research questions. First, what do ESDP actors think about ESDP? Second, can we classify their preferences according to sociological factors that underpin the ESDP domain? To conceptualize the belief system of ESDP actors, we propose a typology that distinguishes (1) the social context in which ESDP actors are embedded and (2) the specific ESDP aspects about which preferences are shaped. Our results suggest that both national and occupational variables play an important role in explaining the preferences of ESDP actors.