Translating Latin legalese: between dynamic equivalence and formal correspondence. A comparative study case of Latin legal terms and maxims in English, Italian and Polish language

Abstract

The aim of this article is to outline some theoretical problems related to the incompatibility of formal use of several Latin expressions present in English, Italian and Polish lexis as well as to propose solutions for facing practical cases of translation troubles based on the experience of the author gathered as academic, court translator and lay judge. The corpus shall be divided into the categories of lexemes utilized respectively in the European Union law such as (1) legal source texts, (2) procedural documents, (3) jurisprudence. The quoted examples aim to meet the initial assumption about the incompatibility as well as partial or non-equivalence of Latin terms among the examined study cases in selected representatives of Germanic, Romance and Slavonic languages.