This book review of “Legal Translation and the Dictionary” is taken from academia.edu. Although referring to Czech legal translation it raises many interesting issues for legal translation in general

Marta Chromá: Legal Translation and the Dictionary. Max Niemeyer Verlag, Postfach 2140, D-72011 Tübingen. 2004, vii + 122 pp. ISBN 3-484-39122-7. Price: 38,00 EUR.

Reviewed by Tomasz Borkowski, MA. Sądowa 23, 42-270 Kłomnice, Poland.

This work by Marta Chromá details the theoretical basis underlying the writing of the Czech-English Law Dictionary with Explanations (2001). The general purpose of the book, contained in the “Foreword”, is to share the experience the Author gained while compiling said dictionary, especially as concerns the functioning of language and the law in the two systems with those who may want to embark on a similar task, i.e., to create a dictionary whose source language is not widely spoken, and whose target language is English.

Before I embark on a detailed presentation of the book, however, I consider it crucial to present my “perspective statement”, i.e. the perspective from which I will cover the contents of the book. It is consistent with that of the Author’s presumed recipients as stated in the “Foreword”, namely that of a lexicographer-beginner and terminology coordinating editor of an electronic terminological database who wants to create a Polish-English electronic dictionary containing statutory terms. Thus, in considering the goals of the dictionary, I will carefully look at how Chromá describes those legal, linguistic and pragmatic factors that, in her view, influence proper lexicographical methodology to ensure a correct interlingual transfer of information reflected by legal terms in a dictionary. Legal Translation and the Dictionary is divided in six parts, the first three of which are entitled: “I. Introduction”, “II. Law dictionary and the language of the law”, and “III. Conclusion”. The next two are extensive summaries in German and French, and the last one – a bibliography.

“Introduction” contains a brief course on the modern history of Czech bilingual lexicography that reaches back to Josef Jungmann’s Czech-German Dictionary in 5 volumes (1834-1839). Chromá distinguishes the period following World War I when certain members of the Prague Linguistic Circle attached to the Prague School of (functional) Linguistics engaged in research in what we call now the “language for specific/special purposes (LSP)”. This was a branch that developed after the establishment of the commercial college, a new type of post-secondary school. The 1950s saw departments of foreign languages become the main centers of research in LSP, as well as in specialist lexicography – or, more specifically, terminography. The greatest achievements preceding the 1990 political breakthrough were the edition of Russian-, German-, French– and English-Czech thirteen-branch legal-language lexicons. 1990 marked a new era in both LSP research and bilingual lexicography. Thus, “Introduction” puts the Author’s work in the context of what was done in Czech terminography research up until the particular year, which leaves the reader curious as to the contribution Chromá has made in this field.

Part II of the book is divided into four subparts, which reflect the intention of Chromá voiced in the Foreword, a major asset in itself, as it helps the reader to focus on the step-by-step elaboration of the previously outlined contents. In subpart entitled: “1.Objectives of the Dictionary” the Author specifies them as: 1. to offer help to translators of Czech legal texts into English in the aim of producing both linguistically and legally correct, precise, and accurate translations that the translated text be comprehensible to English-language native speakers who are lawyers and whose legal system is based on Common Law (in 1.1. non-native English-language speakers are also included); 2. to standardize (codify – the Prague Circle’s terminology) English translation equivalents of Czech legal terminology, something which is vital in view of the (then yet to take place) accession of the Czech Republic to the EU; 3. to map the basic features of the Czech legal language; 4. to find authentic equivalents in the Anglo-American system of law of words and concepts which have seemingly been poorly translated from Czech. The above-mentioned have definitely been set reasonably and they touch the linguistic, legal, and pragmatic issues detailed in II, so let us look at how their attainment is pursued throughout the book.

In 1.1 the importance of defining the target users as one of the most influential factors in pre-lexicographical stage decision-making is emphasized, with the following types of users being set forth: a) linguists lacking a legal educational background (mainly translators and interpreters, including Czech teachers of legal English); b) graduates (or students) of law schools, lacking formal linguistic education; c) dictionary users who are neither linguists nor lawyers. All users should have a solid intermediate knowledge of Czech (as English-language speakers) or English (as a native Czech). The main goal of the dictionary, having regard to the above-mentioned types of users, is “to assist those who deal with Czech legal texts in trying to understand and transfer them into (legal) English” (p. 5).

In subpart 2, “Legal framework”, Chromá traces the sources of problems characteristic of Czech-to-English legal translations. The key ones are:

1. the fact of Czech legal terminology being unstable and exposed to substantial foreign law influence, and, moreover, the lack of strict legal control over the terminology since 1990. The Author’s low assessment of quality of Czech legislative texts in 2.1 results from, e.g., “hidden derogation” (adopted Acts lack derogative provisions) and “legislative muddle” – the feature of the Collection of Laws of the Czech Republic published since 1918. Chromá describes said Collection as having kept no account of repeals and amendments to one third of the Acts. On top of that, Czech Acts are also linguistically defective, e.g., they lack definitions and interpretation parts. Their incomprehensibility stems from both linguistic ignorance on the part of persons acting in the public arena and the absence of a general language policy. Indeed, Czech Acts have fallen pray to “legislative fury”, i.e., massive amendments affecting the most important statutes especially in the pre-accession period, the effect of which is that the terminology system has been seriously shaken. Failure to attach legal force to law-making guidelines, failure to train legislative drafters and the “damage” done to draft laws in the Parliament have only added to the gloomy picture of Czech law;
2. systemic and conceptual differences between the Continental and Common Law systems, the former being the basis for Czech law, and the latter – for Anglo-American law, including discrepancies between five major legal systems constituting the “Anglo-American system”, i.e., those of the USA, the UK, Ireland, Canada and Australia. Said divergences require intrasemiotic (intralanguage) analysis on the part of the translator, i.e., semantic and legal interpretation of the source text. This issue is further reviewed with regard to 3.2 – see below. Here Chromá mentions and exemplifies one solution for translating source terms whose concepts lack equivalents in the target language, namely the “equivalent paraphrase”. I will go back to her later elaboration on the issue of equivalence in the course of this review;
3. possible extensive synonymy of English legal terms resulting from the multitude of systems assumed as the basis of seeking equivalents.

Interestingly enough, the Author, recognizing the acquis communautaire written in English as another source of legal and linguistic equivalents, denies European Union law full reliability. Here she points to the failure to fully standardize it within the Czech legal system, Czech being the target language in said standardization process, and she contrasts that process with the CELDE task, where Czech is the source language. But is this enough justification for the book’s outright rejection of EU law in English as a source of potential equivalents? One may quite legitimately suggest that, given the importance of accession to the EU (which the Author mentions with regard to the linguistic objectives of CELDE – see above), she should more clearly or comprehensively explain the rejection.  Maybe the areas of law that CELDE covers (see later here) prove to be unaffected by the acquis communautaire, and thus no possible retranslation needs to be considered. But if this was the case, it should have been explicitly stated in the book.

Having outlined the legal framework underlying Czech-to-English translations, Chromá proceeds to specifying the linguistic framework in subpart 3, which is the most extensive one in the book. First, in 3.1.1., “LSP and LLP”, she defines LSP as “a subsystem of the general language system which consists of (describing and analyzing) the selection, combination and use of existing morphological, lexical and syntactic units, structures and patterns that would best serve the specific stylistic, discourse and generic functions of a text in a concrete subject area and specific social context” (p. 13), and attributes the name “LSP variety” (basing on Picht and Draskau, 1985) to language for legal purposes (LLP).

Then in 3.1.2, “Terminology”, and in other sub-subparts (3.1.2.1-3.1.2.7) the Author broadly covers lexical, semantic, grammatical and syntactic restrictions of the LSP variety that result from the use of terminology understood as the most visible part of the vocabulary (i.e., the collection of terms which represents the system of concepts) of an individual, special subject-field. First of all, she describes the types of lexical units in the legal language, the most relevant one for us being “pure” law terminology, i.e., that which is used exclusively within the branch of law.

At the same time, Chromá points out that it is codification, i.e., publishing monolingual law dictionaries based on a respective legal system (rather than standardization) that is characteristic of legal terminology. Thus, perhaps, she should have used the term “standardization of reference” in describing the objectives of CELDE with respect to English equivalents, i.e., the situation in which one concept is represented by one term throughout the entire system (Sager, 1990: 114-118). Lacking this, the reader may be left confused as to the meaning of the term “standardization” here.

In 3.1.2.1 Chromá juxtaposes the traditional approach to terms being monosemous (one meaning) and mononymous (one word) lexical units with the fact that the majority of legal terms are multi-word expressions and phrases requiring a context for them to be recognized. In 3.1.2.2. the Author subcategorizes terms according to their function as specialist terms (or terms of art) referring to defined or definable concepts and descriptive terms (nomenclatures or taxonomies). Then Chromá claims that as regards the normativity of terminology, the language of the law contains prescriptive terminology that represents prescriptive norms expressed by statutory terms. 3.1.2.3. is a meticulous study on the grammatical, i.e., morphemic, categorial (e.g., countable vs. uncountable varieties of one word), lexemic and syntagmatic subcategorization of terms. 3.1.2.4., in turn, focuses on polynomial lexemes (i.e., containing more than one word) called also phrasemes, which need appropriate identification on the part of a special lexicographer.

The extended meaning of vocabulary as noted with reference to 3.1.2 is related to the description of the “term” at the beginning of 3.1.2.1, where Chromá cites that it is “an expression denoting a concept as a part of the system of concepts of a specific subject-field”. Later in the book (4.2) the Author mentions also a concept-system structure and notes the need for cross-referencing. Unfortunately, this vital systemic perspective seems to be reflected neither in the description of the dictionary nor in the entries themselves. One may only wonder how the maintenance of unity and the consistency of the identification of a term within the conceptual system where it is used (which is of paramount importance for users) can be ensured without defining and presenting relationships among the concepts reflected by dictionary entries, an increasingly powerful terminographical approach taken, e.g., by Sager (1990).

When pointing to synonymy in terminology in 3.1.2.5., Chromá emphasizes the need of ascertainment thereof by analyzing the intension and distribution of two allegedly synonymical terms, which, if identical, make them full synonyms; otherwise such terms could be partial synonyms, which prevail in occurrence. Other relationships between terms: homonymy and polysemy (3.1.2.6), considerably affect a lexicographer’s work, as the former requires different headwords, whereas the latter requires different equivalents for one headword. At the same time the Author argues that there is no pure homonymy in either legal Czech or legal English, as homonyms are used in different branches of science. This approach may well take a considerable load off the lexicographer when in doubt as to the relations between terms having the same form and allegedly different meaning: they would consequently be either polysemes or different instances of the occurrence of one term. The three-page coverage of legal jargon in 3.1.2.7 is only relevant for us insofar as the legalese in English covers also statutory texts, whereas in the Czech legislative texts we would only find standardized Czech (SC), which is in contrast to professionalisms (jargon) belonging to common Czech (CC).

“Technical” terminology issues finished, the Author presents in 3.2, “Linguistics of Translation”, her views on what we could call an analytical solution based on translation theory to the problems of finding the right equivalents to legal terms in a dictionary given the incongruities of different-type legal systems. Chromá’s coverage of the topic is quite extensive and is continued in 4.2 (“Conceptual Dictionary”), but the relevant gist for our perspective is as follows:

1. The ultimate goal of legal translation is that the target recipient obtains as explicit, extensive, and precise (i.e., fully preserved) culture-dependent legal information in the target language as is contained in the source text, and that the information is fully comprehensible in a different legal environment and culture. That is why a comparative genre analysis combined with comparative conceptual analysis has to be conducted by a person having basic knowledge of the respective legal and linguistic issues in both source- and target-language cultures (as law is a highly culture-dependent field of science). The former concerns linguistic equivalence and is based on semantic interpretation, whereas the latter pertains to finding legally equivalent, i.e., conceptually similar or identical terms by measuring the degree of equivalence between potential equivalents in incongruous legal systems. This analysis can be conducted on the basis of “parallel topical excerption” (reading extensively on narrowly defined topics in both SL and TL, enabling the practitioner to discern the ways native speakers write about them), also taking into account the function and purpose of the target text (i.e. skopos) and expectations of the ultimate recipient (i.e., pragmatic considerations) in the new communicative situation.

Such an approach seems to be highly user-oriented as regards the resulting dictionary contents. However, the information underlying my brief account of Chroma’s approach here and in 2 below is not a summary of a uniform piece of writing, for her focus is dispersed to quite an extent throughout part 3 and 4 of the book: hence it requires a lot of effort to combine all the pieces into a logical whole. This of course is contributory to one’s reasoning skills, so indispensable in a translator’s work, but some might well regard it a drawback. To give a credit to the Author, chart 1 on page 51, which covers the elements of the interlingual information transfer, is highly useful for readers, although extremely concise.

2. To carry out this interlingual transposition of legal information successfully, one has to conduct, first of all, intralingual (intrasemiotic) analysis, i.e., to get to the legal and semantic meaning of the source term, to then be able to compare it with alleged equivalents and finally select one in the target language, i.e., make an interlingual (intersemiotic) analysis. Given the inherent incongruities of different legal systems, central here is the methodological approach to accomplishing the translation goals by choosing appropriate type of equivalence in a given instance.

Let me go into details here. Chromá limits the meaning of the term “equivalence” to the act of cross-language matching “words or phrases having equal or corresponding import, meaning or significance” (p. 50).

For clarity purposes, we can make a certain classification of the types of possible equivalents presented by the Author. In view of preservation of the cultural specificity of source terms, “legal realia”, i.e. expressions that are “culturally rooted in the national law and language” but have “no, or an incomplete, counterpart in the target language and target legal system” (p. 51), such as the Czech term maturita (a distant equivalent of the A-level in the UK) would have the lowest equivalence potential. Their target-language rendition would fall either within: a) the category of “cultural equivalents” obtained by “naturalization” or borrowing, the example here being Austrian-German-English terms “matura-exam” for maturita; or within: b) the category of “equivalent paraphrase” or “explanatory equivalents”, i.e. explanatory paraphrasing of a source-language term to mediate the source information in a case where there seems to exist a cross-system onomasiological lacuna. The example here is the Czech term pŕestupek rendered by Chromá as “administrative infraction” or, more generally, “administrative delict”, where adding the word “administrative” to target-language legal terms serves to show that the wrongful act is to be judged according to administrative rather than civil law.

On the contrary, the equivalence potential would be much higher if there are functional equivalents to be found: “terms in the target legal system designating concepts or institutions, the function of which is the same as that of the source term” (p. 55, after Šarčević: 1989a). Chromá underlines, after Šarčević, that most functional equivalents are only partially equivalent insofar as their main characteristics are the same, whereas the accidental ones may be different. In such cases Chromá, referring to Šarčević, regards it legitimate to require “that they [lexicographers – T.B.] cite equivalents of the target legal system which most accurately convey the legal sense of the source term” since “as a result of the inherent incongruity of the terminology of different legal systems, legal lexicographers cannot be expected to provide translation equivalents which are identical to their source terms at the conceptual level …” (p. 67).

One may also think of other types of equivalents that would be addressed to the “unknown or unidentifiable” recipient recognized by the Author (p. 55). Unfortunately, we do not know exactly what she means by such a recipient, although we can speculate that, in contrast with the supposed users mentioned in 1.1 in the book, “unknown” recipients would most probably be non-native English-speakers who, knowing Czech, indulge in translation or linguistic studies of some kind, but do not have solid knowledge concerning English-speaking countries’ legal systems. Neither do we know the solution that Chromá would offer such users to prevent their confusion regarding functional equivalents. Although the Author notices that in such case “the alternative equivalent should be mentioned in a translator’s note or gloss” (p. 55), and that “the message in one text is transferred to another text in order to make it understood by the recipient” (ibid.), we do not find anywhere in the book any specific approach to secondary term formation leading to obtaining equivalents that would satisfy the communicative needs of such “international” and, consequently, “multicultural” collective recipient by translating a term in a way that does not directly relate to target legal-system terms. An example of such an approach can be the possibility to use “neutral”, i.e. non-technical terms, a policy mentioned by Rayar (1997) and Šarčević (1997). Apart from preventing equivalents from being biased against non-native speakers of English, the use of “neutral” equivalents could serve a purpose where there is no functional equivalent that would be acceptable (Šarčević 1997: 242, 255).

Subpart 4: “Lexicographical framework” provides us with an insight into CELDE as an object of terminographical description. We may state that the first part of subpart 4, i.e., 4.1-4.3, concerns the conceptual aspects of CELDE. Again, the picture is quite dispersed here, a flaw that I also pointed out with regard to subpart 3, and my concise reconstruction and assessment of it would be as follows: CELDE, according to the terms Chromá evoked, can be described as a bilingual special purpose (segmental/ technical) encoding (for the Czech people: pattern L1-L2) or decoding (for the Englishmen: pattern L2-L1) translating dictionary containing explanations, which the Author considers a more reliable alternative to common glossary-like dictionaries. A great idea in itself, but only terms not frequently used in legal Czech and those not having a legal equivalent in the Anglo-American system does the author give a chance of being provided with explanations. Although Chromá does not mention it, one would think she had done a thorough frequency analysis in this respect within a chosen corpus of texts.

In the event, the Author understands explanations as serving to report and clarify usage, rather than to define in the sense of prescribing, as if “for the first time”. Hence, she avoids using the word “definition” in the title. They usually, although not always, refer to both the source term and the target term – naturally, there are more English explanations, as sometimes several functional equivalents are contained in one entry. It is worth mentioning that explanations are brief and given in smaller letters (which is highly user-friendly), and they can be expressed in a number of ways, ranging from (definitions by) synonyms, substitutions, and (definitions by) paraphrases, to definitions by analysis, by synthesis, by implication and denotation, with every type being exemplified by the Author. This contributes to greater transparency of her argument.

Explanatory parts are intended also to include (in some cases) essential yet highly useful information in the form of usage examples (e.g., a headword + adjective and their equivalent(s) or longer phrases, e.g., a whole sentence or a clause). In such cases glosses in small letters are used to indicate different contexts of usage of particular terms, or said terms are interlaced with glosses that can form parts of the terms in certain contexts. Both ways of glossing aim at explaining the cultural specificity of given terms. Thus, in this respect, CELDE is a highly flexible resource as especially regards the choice of one of several functional equivalents of a given source term. This stems from the fact, with regard to entries containing explanations, the dictionary identifies the essential conceptual differences and similarities between given equivalent pairs in one entry, thereby providing a translator with possibilities for making informed decisions on whether any of the equivalents would adequately reflect the concept of the source term, and whether it should be used with or without the interlaced gloss if contained in the entry. Furthermore, genuine usage examples, especially longer than a two-word phraseme, are often a source of highly useful information on the syntactical context of a given term, the knowledge so indispensable for correct use of terminology both in the source and the target language. Chromá underlines the importance of the syntactical context throughout her book, and she considers the lack of it a perennial disadvantage of many dictionaries.

The second part of subpart 4, i.e. 4.4, “Collection of material and entry-processing”, accounts for the technical aspect of CELDE: its source material and micro- and macrostructure arrangement. This is here that we get to know that the dictionary is based on two parallel electronic corpora of: a) “core laws representing the whole body of Czech law”, i.e., for example, the Civil Code, the Commercial Code, and the Criminal Code, supplemented by about 3,000 pages of authentic legal documents, including court documents and textbooks; b) English legislative texts, such as the Louisiana Civil Code, Canadian Penal Code, etc., as well as authentic documents, all of which are described as topically relevant to the Czech ones. The selection of such type of materials is highly reasonable, since we have to agree with Chromá’s remark that legislation is the main source of both new terms and the syntactic structures subsequently applied in non-legislative legal discourses. The Author, basing also on other linguists’ opinions, considers such parallel-corpora approach a far more better for comparative purposes than any corpora including original texts and translations, since “linguists should never rely on translations when they are describing the language …; such corpora would have minimum significance in determining the relationship between the source text and language on the one hand and the target language and text on the other.” (p. 71).

The next part of 4.4 (4.4.1-4) contains detailed information on CELDE’s microstructure first and foremost in visual terms. I have already given a lot of information concerning this topic when commenting on subpart 4. Worth adding here is that most CELDE’s headwords are simple lexemes, including primarily nouns, adjectives, verbs and adverbs, i.e., lexical units carrying the bulk of legal information. The necessity of including them is plain. Furthermore, the Author, guided by a user-friendly approach, decided that multi-word terms or phrases can be found under the respective terms constituting them, thus extending the size of the dictionary by a certain number of repeated entries. Strangely enough, however, although Chromá emphasizes the need of keeping source information in the database as regards both headwords and equivalents, as well as usage examples (but apparently not with regard to explanations in the form of definitions), only one example of a cited entry includes notes to this extent (p. 56).

Finally, in 4.5 Chromá devotes about half a page for describing the IT aspect of creating CELDE. She describes the database software used for storing and processing excerpts and for ultimate processing of individual entries. The Author also describes her dictionary in numbers.

As regards the macrostructure, then, starting from the constructional aspect of the dictionary, there are 9,200 headwords in CELDE, and they are arranged alphabetically, which seems to be the most effective approach. Within the headwords CELDE contains 29,000 Czech terms, phrases and semi-sentences, and about 46,000 English equivalents thereof. A database of excerpts consisting of 167,000 words was used to select about 145,000 Czech words for both headwords and exemplifications. The English side of the dictionary, in turn, includes 215,000 words selected from 253,000 contained in a database of English equivalents of headwords and examples of use.

Referring to 4.5, I think that more information on the way of selecting headwords and keeping them terminologically consistent – i.e., ensuring that a given term is always used in one meaning (except for polysemous ones of course) – could have been given apart from a concise statement that the headwords are “adequate with respect to the excerpted material” (p. 72). Such information would be far more relevant for readers, most notably lexicographers or terminologists themselves.

In part III – “Conclusion” – the Author contains a summary of findings together with implications for future research. In applied linguistics the purpose of the research will focus on analysis of individual text types in private, public and procedural law with the aim of creating “comparable corpora of English and Czech legal texts” (p. 83). In lexicography it will concentrate on preparation of a comprehensive English-Czech law dictionary covering the legal systems of all major English-speaking countries, including here the compilation of an English law corpus, the purpose of the dictionary being the provision and explanation of “concepts of the Anglo-American system of law” and finding “their conceptual and/or functional equivalents and counterparts in Czech law and legal language” (ibid.).

Parts IV and V contain abbreviated versions of the respective subparts of the book in German and French, which enables Chromá to acquaint a wider circle of readers with her basic findings.

Finally, part VI includes an extensive bibliography.

Conclusion

In this review I have presented in brief Chromá’s views on the subject of terminography, along with a short assessment thereof. Considering everything that was said here, I am convinced that sharing the lexicographical experience the Author gained with others is by all means valuable. In most general terms we can say that the goals of the dictionary itself are explicitly covered, as are the terminographical solutions corresponding to these goals and serving communicative the needs of potential readers, with some non-clarity, however, with regard to the needs of “unknown” users. More specifically, on the one hand we are offered a description of a wide context of legal language and its interlingual transposition accompanied by the absorbing idea of the inclusion of a wide range of explanation types in entries (especially that of “flexible” terms with interlaced glosses) and numerous exemplary CELDE entries. This is of course excellent, except for lack of transparent organization of the contents to some extent.

On the other hand there is scant information on the methodology, on the basis of which the Author selected the chosen 145,000 words from a rich Czech-language corpus containing about 167,000 words. Were the frequency of terms in the corpus or delineation of conceptual fields the deciding factors? Or were there other factors? I would consider coverage of this particular issue, for example under 4.4, crucial from the lexicographer-terminologist’s perspective.

The apparent lack of coverage of the issue concerning the dictionary as a full reflection of the system of concepts underlying legal systems, and hence the lack of indication of internal relationships holding both among the CELDE source and target terms in its microstructures, may also raise concerns.

Yet another great merit of Chromá’s work is the extensive bibliography containing the basic and most recent subject-area literature. Although here the lack of either the authors’ or main theoretical terms’ index reference may also be regarded an imperfection.

Thus, it is entirely worthwhile to read the book as a valuable contribution to specialist lexicography science, although, considering all the relevant factors – Legal Translation and the Dictionary provides less than comprehensive instruction on how to compile a bilingual, LSP dictionary.

References

Picht H., J. Draskau (1985), Terminology: An Introduction. Surrey: University of Surrey.

Rayar, L. (translator) (1997), The Dutch Penal Code. Littleton: Fred B. Rothman & Co. 277 pp.

Sager, J.C. (1990), A Practical Course in Terminology Processing. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company. 254 pp.

Šarčević, S. (1997), New Approach to Legal Translation. The Hague: Kluwer Law International. 308 pp.

About the Author: Tomasz Borkowski graduated from the Institute of Applied Linguistics, Warsaw University, and currently is a PhD student at the faculty of LSP, Warsaw University. He is working on a PhD thesis concerning a bilingual LSP dictionary. For five years he has been cooperating with the Translegis (formerly TEPIS) Publishing House as a coordinating editor in charge of dealing with the English-language translations of Polish legislative instruments, with a special emphasis on pre- and post-translation editing, as well as terminology preparation. He also manages the PolTerm terminology database, recently imported to EuroTermBank database (www.eurotermbank.com), and a translation memory of Polish legislative texts and their English-language translations in one of CAT tools. During the last year he was a main expert in the Information Processing Centre, Warsaw, working on implementation of the EuroTermBank project. Apart from that, since four years he has been teaching students Polish-English and English-Polish translation of LSP texts (legislative and business texts) at his current faculty at the Warsaw University.

source: https://www.academia.edu/8346378/Marta_Chroma_-_Legal_Translation_and_the_Dictionary_-_review