Conference – Legal Linguistics, Poznań, Poland

Seventh Conference on Legal Translation, Court Interpreting and Comparative Legilinguistics (Legal Linguistics)

 The Institute of Linguistics at Adam Mickiewicz University will hold an international conference devoted to language and the law. The aim is to provide a forum for discussion in those scientific fields where linguistic and legal interests converge, and to facilitate integration between linguists, computer scientists and lawyers from all around the world.

The conference will be held over 3 days, from 29th June to 1st July 2012 in Poznan, Poland.

For more information see the conference website.

Monday smiles – Nutkin the squirrel

Today’s post was brought to my attention by Lawhaha.com. It is an appeal involving the keeping of a squirrel as a family pet, in Pennsylvania, USA.

You can find the whole opinion here, but I’ve selected a few highlights below. This is authentic, by the way, as you will see from the opinion published in the official record. Judge Hudock clearly has a great sense of humo(u)r…

“This appeal revolves around the life and times of Nutkin the squirrel.

Nutkin’s early life was spent in the state of ferrae naturae, in the state of South Carolina, and, as far as we can tell, in a state of contentment. She apparently had plenty of nuts to eat and trees to climb, and her male friends, while not particularly handsome, did have nice personalities. Life was good.

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English legal terminology webinars

eCPD Webinars are presenting a series of five 1-hour webinars in June and July, on legal terminology in England and Wales.

The speaker is David Hutchins of Lexacom, who teaches law and terminology at face-to-face workshops and seminars, both to translators, and to lawyers from civil code systems who are less familiar with common law.

Webinar 1, 26 June: Contracts and Contract Formation for Legal Translators
Webinars 2 & 3, 28 June: The English Legal System for Legal Interpreters and Translators
Webinars 4 & 5, 3 July: Criminal Law and Procedure for Legal Interpreters and Translators

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Translations as an adversarial device – Part 1

Every interpreter who has worked on a deposition will be familiar with lawyers using interpretation as a way to bargain. However, I hadn’t thought about this in the context of written translations before.

This guest post, by Dan Harris and first published at China Law Blog, started me thinking about this issue. Dan writes and speaks extensively on Chinese law.

I hope you will have lots of comments, because I think it’s a fascinating subject for discussion. I’ll be writing more about this in a  couple of weeks.

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EU Law course by HEC free on iTunesU

A wonderful resource is now available on iTunesU. There are fifteen video courses, free of charge, for download, on subjects ranging from the free movement of goods, the various institutions and acts, to the Internal Market and the Integration Process.

The course has been made available by Alberto Alemanno, Associate Professor of Law at at HEC Paris, where he holds a Jean Monnet Chair in EU Law & Risk Regulation. He teaches EU law, International Economic Law, Global Antitrust and Risk Regulation. He is also Adjunct Professor of Law at Georgetown University Law Center, where he teaches Global Risk Regulation, and a qualified attorney at law in New York since 2004.

France’s HEC, or Ecole des Hautes Etudes Commerciales, was listed as Best European Business School in the Financial Times overall ranking of European business schools for the 6th consecutive year in 2011.

On his blog, Alemanno also mentions an iPad version of the course coming soon.

For more about iTunesU and some iPad apps, see my post here.

RELINE – Legal linguistics network

The recently launched Legal Linguistics Network – RELINE (short for REtsLIngvistisk NEtværk) wants to remedy the lack of dialogue between disciplines.

Now as far as the author of this blog is concerned, that’s always a good thing!

The network, launched by the University of Copenhagen, includes scholars from all over the world – jurists, linguists, rhetoricians, and communication scholars, and also philosophers, political scientists and anthropologists. There is no charge for membership.

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Termium® becomes quadrilingual and has a special legal section

After first using Termium®, the Government of Canada’s terminology and linguistic databank, when it came on a CD-ROM (anybody else remember that?), I now consult the online version from time to time.

Termium® has become quadrilingual (English, French, Spanish and Portuguese), although as yet only 18,000 words are available in Portuguese.

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Monday smiles – Kent Police crush local pesto ring

A very British post today for our Monday smile. Hope you like it! It comes from a satirical UK website called NewsBiscuit – The news before it happens

Kent Police were this afternoon formally congratulated on the outstanding success of Operation Ploughmans. Speaking from outside Downing St, Prime Minister David Cameron praised the two month operation as ‘a significant contribution’ to Britain’s home economic security.

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Life as a freelance court reporter…

I am delighted to introduce today’s fascinating guest post from Cheryll Kerr, a freelance court reporter from America who has taken depositions far and wide – from Europe to the Middle East, as well as in the States. This high-powered job requires incredible skills – I’ve seen them in action and I was amazed. Continue reading