How to Distinguish and Translate Synonymous English Legal Terms

Abstract

The article deals with the problem of teaching and learning legal terminology at the lessons of professional English for law students. It focuses on the lexical-semantic group LAWYER, characterized by a high nominative density in English and includes several scores of lexemes, nominating professionals representing defendants' interests in courts, e.g., attorney, barrister, solicitor, advocate, counsel, legal practitioner, litigator, jurist, procurator, trial lawyer, counselor, counselor-at-law etc. This fact poses considerable difficulty for Russian ESL learners as in Russian there is only one term with the corresponding meaning advokat. The article pursues the goal to explore semantic and functional differences in legal terms under consideration and suggests some techniques for their teaching and learning. The study aims to answer the questions: (1) how to differentiate the English legal terms, and (2) how to translate them. The data were taken from various sources: dictionaries, legal documents, and Internet resources. Comparative, semantic and cultural analysis was implemented. The findings show that due to the developed system of the English law (Common law) and its long history English possesses a considerable set of terms denoting the lawyers representing clients' interests which do not have their lexical counterparts in Russian. The paper argues that to distinguish between English synonymous legal terms and find their translation equivalents the following aspects should be taken into consideration: (1) cultural variability of the English language, i.e. a national variety of English, (2) functional varieties of lawyers in the system of law; (3) functions of lawyers within the framework of a case; (4) status differences of lawyers; (5) frequency of usage of the term discussed; (6) its stylistic characteristic (officialcolloquialslang). The findings can be used in the teaching of Legal English to law students, be applied in Lexicography, as well as contribute to the study of pluricentric languages.