Survey: Calling those commissioning legal translations

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160_F_47429278_5GsLSXbqijigzsuABUdsiUrQm1li9F84Following last week’s post addressed to legal translators, I would now like to ask any readers that commission (or buy / procure / receive…) legal translations, or who know someone who does, to be kind enough to pass on or complete the simple online survey at this link:

http://protra.wufoo.com/forms/commissioning-legal-translation-questionnaire/

I am looking in particular for lawyers, law firms, in-house counsel, para-legals, court workers, and the judiciary.

Please feel free to repost the survey link wherever you think is relevant.

There is also a small project website here: http://www.translationandthelaw.protrads.com/

As you may know from reading the ‘About me’ page of this blog, in addition to my other activities, I am currently researching a PhD. The above survey forms part of the project, since one of the points I am looking at is issues encountered by those commissioning translations. My aim is that the project output could lead to improvements in industry practice.

Many thanks in advance!

Connections between language and economics

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I’m stretching the scope of the blog today, since this post doesn’t actually discuss law, but I hope you’ll find it interesting. I have posted before about the TEDTalks initiative (see here about a patent pool, this post about plain language in Portugal, and this talk by Arianna Huffington about getting more sleep).

In the video below, Keith Chen, professor at Yale University in the USA discusses his research on how languages without a concept for the future – “It rain tomorrow”, instead of “It will rain tomorrow” – correlate with high savings rates and retirement assets.

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Conference – Language and law ‘in paradise’ (Brazil)

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800px-Florianopolis_SAntonioLisboa_beachActually ‘paradise’ is just my interpretation 🙂 – Language and the Law – Bridging the Gaps is the first international conference to be jointly sponsored by ALIDI (the newly formed Association for Language and Law for Speakers of Portuguese) and the IAFL (International Association of Forensic Linguists). The official languages of the Conference will be English and Portuguese.
The conference will be hosted at the Federal University of Santa Catarina in Florianópolis, Brazil.

A call for papers, posters, themed colloquia and roundtables is currently being made – topics include the following indicative but not exclusive list:

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Survey: Legal translators, How are you briefed?

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iStock_000010043942XSmallThis post is addressed to any freelance legal translators out there. I would be extremely grateful if you could spare the time (5-10 minutes) to complete the simple online survey at the link below: http://protra.wufoo.com/forms/legal-translators-how-are-you-briefed/.

Please also feel free to repost the survey link wherever you think is relevant.

There is also a little project website here: http://briefing.protrads.com/.

As you may know from reading the ‘About me’ page of this blog, in addition to my other activities, I am currently researching a PhD. The above survey forms part of the project, since one of the points I am looking at is how freelance legal translators are briefed by those commissioning translations. My aim is that the project output could lead to improvements in industry practice.

Many thanks in advance!

New features on Google Scholar for US case law

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Search Button On KeyboardThe Google Scholar interface (scholar.google.[com or your country code]) is named for its function of searching academic articles. However, it has ‘hidden’ extras – such as a search of patents, and a search of US case law.

Since the end of last year, the search can be refined by court jurisdiction – as you can see from the partial screenshot below (click to enlarge). The search can also be filtered by date range.

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Monday smiles – Pastagate

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800px-Bucatini_(amatriciana_rossa)Following other recent media frenzies (see here about signage, and this post about bilingual dogs), Quebec’s language watchdog has managed to cause another international rumpus – this time about pasta.

An inspector from the Office quebecois de la langue francaise (OQLF) told Italian restaurant owner Massimo Lecas that he had to replace various terms on his menu, including pasta, calamari, and antipasti, with French equivalents.

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Juricourriels

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Enveloppe blancheToday’s post is especially for the French speakers among you. The juricourriels (literally translated ‘legal emails’) are an initiative of the Centre de ressources en français juridique at the Université de Saint-Boniface in Canada to encourage those in the legal sector to read, on a regular basis, a short text of a legal nature highlighting a term or expression, a legal concept, a mini-glossary (FR/EN), or a legal summary. They relate in particular to the Canadian legal context, but may well be of interest to all those working with French.

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Euro-English at the European Parliament

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Thanks to Jeffrey Waggoner (@WagLegalEnglish) for the heads-up about this thought-provoking video on Euro-English at the European Parliament, from the Open University’s OpenLearn program (see this post).

Here are a few of the points the video covers:

  • The ‘hegemony’ of English as lingua franca
  • People choosing to speak a ‘primary’ language for more impact
  • Language conveys values – choice of language is not neutral
  • The added difficulty for interpreters of non-native speakers not saying what they mean but what they are able to say
  • Is Euro-English a jargon or a new language?
  • Maybe even native English speakers will have to learn Euro-English in order not to alienate listeners.

Entrance_European_Parliament2