The English Language Chair of the Law Faculty of the Seconda Università degli Studi di Napoli is organizing its Second International Conference on Law, Language and Professional Practice. Drawing on some of the issues and discussions about the relationship between Law and Language in the first conference (17-19 June 2010), this second conference takes the theme forward by bringing into focus the third perspective of ‘professional practice’, which is particularly relevant to our increasingly globalized world today. Registration for the conference is now open.
Tag Archives: law
Omne trium perfectum – everything that comes in threes is perfect
I am delighted to introduce the first guest post of this blog, written by Diana Rubanenko, a translator and editor who draws on a ‘rich tapestry of employment’ and a fascinating life – for more details see here: http://rubanenko.com/.
Monday smiles – light bulbs and arks
As my readers may have guessed by now, I do think that a sprinkling of fun is important in life. Today I have two little texts for you – one lampoons lawyers (my apologies in advance, but hopefully you have a good sense of humo(u)r), and the other bureaucracy and nanny States (no apologies there…!)
So, first “How many lawyers does it take to change a light bulb?”
And second, “Noah’s Ark Today” (the subject of which is definitely not specific to Canada!)
The texts were posted on an award-winning blog with the unexpected name “Law is Cool“, which addresses “issues related to law school and the legal field with a Canadian focus”.
Have a good week!
Machine translation of the law
In this post, I would like to give you a taster of the controversial subject of machine translation (MT). Full references are given below so that you can read further if you are interested.
Potentially, MT could, inter alia, reduce costs, widen access to content, process large volumes of data in order to identify items of interest, make translators’ work more interesting by taking over repetitive tasks, and facilitate communication, for example in social networks or where very unfamiliar languages are involved. The key caveat is that users be clear about the limitations of MT with respect to the translation skopos (or purpose).
Access to legal translation and interpreting
Fair Trials International and five other NGOs (Amnesty International, the Open Society Justice Initiative, JUSTICE, the European Criminal Bar Association and the Irish Council for Civil Liberties) have criticised the UK and Irish Governments for their stance on a new law on access to legal advice.
Read the Fair Trials article here.
Read the European Directive of 20 October 2010 on the right to interpretation and translation in criminal proceedings by clicking here.
Welcome!
Welcome to the first post of a brand new blog devoted to promoting links between the translation and legal professions. 
As a legal translator for the last twenty years and currently researching a PhD on a methodology for legal terminology, I am passionate about building bridges – both between academia and practice, and between translators and legal professionals.
I hope to make this blog a forum for a wide range of topics in these fields, and will also be inviting guests to write entries for the blog. Do let me know what you think!
From Words to Deeds: translation & the law 
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