Eurolanguage: an introduction to translation and multilingual legal drafting in the European Union

The twenty-seven Member States that constitute the European Union differ on linguistic, cultural and legal grounds. Nevertheless, one of the EU’s founding principles is multilingualism and the translation of its entire legislation in all the twenty-three official languages. Originally conceived for a four-member community, multilingualism has resisted throughout the numerous waves of EU enlargement and is today aimed at giving national Governments the chance to be equally represented. In particular, unlike other international organizations, the European Union enacts legislative measures that override national law; multilingualism is therefore also indispensable to guarantee that citizens in each Member State thoroughly understand the law in their native language in order to comply with it. Following an introductory section on multilingual legal drafting and on the difficulties related to the uniform interpretation of EU specialised concepts throughout national courts, the study concentrates on the semantic and morphosyntactic aspects that help classify EU language as a Language for Special Purposes (LSP). From a lexical perspective, the focus shifts to a diachronic analysis of the neologisms derived from Community debates, policy and legislation. Reflecting the continuous evolution of its political, economic and legislative measures, ‘Eurolanguage’ becomes a highly productive mechanism that increasingly permeates national languages through politics and the media. Terminological productivity is also constantly guaranteed by the meticulous work of EU staff translators, who exploit the inner resources of national languages and thus actively contribute to the introduction and diffusion of EU specialised terminology.