Observing Eurolects Network (OEN)

The research group Observing Eurolects Network (OEN) represents a continuation of the Eurolect Observatory Project (EOP), directed by Professor Laura Mori. The activities of the EOP have been carried out in two phases: the first phase (2013-2016) aimed at verifying and/or confirming the existence of 11 EU legislative varieties – the so-called Eurolects – that originated and established themselves within the linguistic diasystems of (some) EU Member States. During this phase the project benefited from the funding received from the UNINT University Research Commission (CRA) and from the financial support of the European Commission, which co-financed two initiatives within the framework of the Translating Europe Workshops. At the end of the first phase, the volume Observing Eurolects. Corpus analysis of linguistic variation in EU law, edited by Laura Mori, was published by Benjamins. At the same time, the first results of the project were disseminated at meetings and conferences attended by EOP members (see section “Dissemination events”). 

The second phase of the project (2017-2020) involved individual and group work in the following fields of study: jurilinguistics, sociolinguistics, contact linguistics, textual and pragmatic linguistics, terminology, translation-oriented contrastive studies, and statistical analysis of language variation.  
It involved 30 members from 22 universities or research institutions based in several European countries. Thanks to the funding granted by the CRA, it was possible to expand the Eurolect Observatory Multilingual Corpus by adding the following corpora to the A and B corpora collected during the first phase:

  • corpus C, consisting of national laws with no relation to EU legislation, available for Greek, English, Italian, Polish, Spanish, German;
  • corpus D, composed of legislative varieties of languages ​​that are official languages ​​in several EU Member States or in non-EU European countries (such as Switzerland) and compiled thanks to the funding obtained by Annarita Felici (Université de Genève) for the project “Eurolect Observatory: Looking for Eurolect footprints in the Swiss Legislation”.

 

The research activities focused in particular on the following thematic areas:

  • gender-inclusive language issues;
  • geographical variability in the legislative varieties of different European countries (including non-EU Member States);
  • intra-linguistic variation between EU, EU-derived and national law;
  • language contact and convergence phenomena in Eurolects;
  • improvement of legislative quality for greater inclusion and accessibility;
  • discursive construction of European identity in primary law.

 

As can be seen from the list of publications (see section "Focus on Eurolects“) and presentations (see section “Dissemination events“) given at national and international conferences. 
In its seven years of activity, the Project has brought about the creation and consolidation of an international network, which is going to persist after the conclusion of the second phase thanks to the research group called Observing Eurolects Network (OEN). It aims to serve as a point of reference for anyone working on Eurolect/s, with approaches and methods that may involve one or more disciplines (legal, textual, pragmatic and contact linguistics; sociolinguistics; terminology; translation-oriented contrastive studies; linguistic variation , investigated through statistical analysis; corpus linguistics). Researchers (see section “Members“) from 12 European universities and one Italian research center participate in the Group (last update: April 2021). 

In particular, the OEN pursues the following objectives:

  • giving prominence to research activities on Eurolects, both currently underway and those to come;
  • encouraging the emergence of new research projects, either individual or joint;
  • starting collaborations with new partners active in the same field of investigation and maintaining the existing ones, such as the fruitful interaction between Laura Mori and the Institute of Computational Linguistics “Antonio Zampolli” in Pisa; the collaboration with the research group coordinated by Annarita Felici in Geneva; the exchange of information with the research group directed by Łucja Biel ( "The Eurolect: an EU variant of Polish and its impact on administrative Polish“); the support provided by Fabio Proia to the research unit directed by Daniel Leisser that will study the relationship between the German Eurolect and the Austrian legislative variety;
  • fostering and consolidating the fundamental link established between scholars working in different academic institutions and research bodies;
  • maintaining an open channel of communication with the European institutions, which have contributed so much to the achievement of the objectives in the two phases of the EOP;
  • collecting and disseminating information on research products, both those already published and those to be produced in the future, focusing on one or more Eurolects. To this end, an ad hoc section, “Focus on Eurolects”, has been created, in which all news about new publications, conferences or research projects on the subject are collected. Among the members of the Group, Fabio Proia is the contact person to whom useful information can be sent for the continuous updating of this section. Focus on Eurolects aims to represent a virtual space of exchange and dissemination for those interested in this interdisciplinary field of research.

Łucja Biel
UNIVERSITY OF WARSAW

Lorenzo Blini 
UNINT

Giuditta Caliendo 
UNIVERSITY OF LILLE

Paolo Canavese
UNIVERSITY OF GENÈVE

Sandro Caruana 
UNIVERSITY OF MALTA

Sara Castagnoli 
UNIVERSITY OF MACERATA

Gatis Dilāns
EKA UNIVERSITY OF APPLIED SCIENCES, RIGA

Annarita Felici
UNIVERSITY OF GENÈVE

Océane Foubert  
UNIVERSITY OF LILLE

Laurent Gautier 
UNIVERSITY OF BOURGOGNE

Daniel Leisser 
UNIVERSITÄT WIEN

Laura Mori 
UNINT

Fabio Proia 
UNINT

Vilelmini Sosoni 
IONIAN UNIVERSITY

Giulia Venturi 
INSTITUTE OF COMPUTATIONAL LINGUISTICS 
"TO. ZAMPOLLI”

Eva Wiesmann 
UNIVERSITY OF BOLOGNA

Focus on Eurolects provides an overview of the studies, carried out in the framework of individual or group research projects, dealing with one or more legal varieties used in the EU legislation (“Eurolects”). In most cases they analyze and compare data from corpora of legislation (eg EU directives and national transposition measures) or judgments issued by the EU Court of Justice and/or by national courts.

The titles of the publications are divided into two sections, according to the method and approach adopted by the author(s). The first section (“Monolingual studies”) includes studies that examine the EU and the national legal language used in a particular EU Member State (eg the German Eurolect on the one hand, the German variety in use in the Federal Republic of Germany on the other). Works that extend their field of investigation to two or more Eurolects are listed in the second section (“Multilingual studies”). All titles are grouped by language, indicated by the corresponding ISO 639-1 code, and presented in chronological order. The acronym EOP in brackets marks those works that were published by project participants during the first and second phases of the Eurolect Observatory Project (2013-2016 and 2017-2020). Works published by members of the Observing Eurolects Network after 2020 are marked by the acronym OEN in brackets following their name. The last two sections are devoted to MA Thesis/PhD Dissertations, both published and unpublished, and to book reviews respectively.

Focus on Eurolects aims to be a source of reference for researchers interested in one or more Eurolects. If you are doing research in this field and would like to include the title of your study in the list, please contact professor Fabio Proia, responsible for the content of this webpage.

DE

EL

EN

ES

FI

FR

HU

IT

LV

MT

NL

PL

PT

  • 2020 AFONSO Teresa, Legislative translation into Portuguese as a polysystem. The impact of the Eurolect on the domestic Portuguese legal language. In: Fòrum de Recerca, 25/2020, 53-54;

SV

  • 2023 CESAROTTI Giulia Claudia, Fundamental Rights Enshrined in the German Constitution and the Charter of Nice: Two Legal Languages ​​Compared. Unpublished MA thesis, Rome, UNINT.
  • 2022 POLITO Silvia, Traces of Eurolect in Swiss legal Italian? A corpus analysis on the CHEU-lex corpus. Unpublished MA thesis, Bologna, University of Bologna;
  • 2020 GALLETTO Sara, Geschlechtergerechte Sprache in der Gesetzgebung der Switzerland und der EU: Vergleichende Korpusuntersuchung anhand von EU-Richtlinien, Schweizer Bundesgesetzen und bilateralen Abkommen. Unpublished MA thesis, Genève, Université de Genève;
  • 2019 MESSMANN Maike, Einflüsse des Eurolekts auf die Gesetzestexte Deutschlands am Beispiel der MiFID I and der MiFID II. Unpublished MA thesis, Genève, Université de Genève;
  • 2019 BY BARTOLOMEO Doriana, German Eurolect and German legislative language compared. A contrastive analysis based on corpora. Unpublished MA thesis, Rome, UNINT;
  • 2018 MARIANI Jessica, Migration in Translation: the role of terminology and trans-editing in shaping the crisis in EU Institutions. Unpublished PhD dissertation, Verona, University of Verona;
  • 2018 CIMA Matteo, The Bulgarian Eurolect: comparative analysis of a corpus of European directives and national implementing laws. Unpublished MA thesis, Bologna, University of Bologna;
  • 2018 CARTON Julie, The linguistic influence of EU directives on Dutch implementation laws. A comparative corpus-based study. Unpublished MA thesis, Ghent, University of Ghent;
  • 2017 SERACINI Francesca, “A Corpus-Based Descriptive Translation Studies Analysis of European Union Legislation.”. Unpublished PhD dissertation, Milan, Catholic University of the Sacred Heart;
  • 2016 BY VITO Giulia, Eurolect and legal Spanish: contrastive analysis of the morphological and morphosyntactic levels. Unpublished MA thesis, Rome, UNINT;
  • 2016 BARONI Flaminia, Intellectual property: linguistic-contrastive analysis of a corpus of European directives in German and respective transposition laws in the Federal Republic of Germany. Unpublished MA thesis, Rome, UNINT;
  • 2015 STOLÍNOVÁ Barbora, Eurožargon v překladových textech vznikajících u institucí EU [Translated title: Eurolect in Czech translations originating in EU Institutions]. Unpublished MA thesis, Prague, Charles University;
  • 2015 SABIA Giuliana, The German Eurolect: linguistic-contrastive analysis of a corpus of European directives and respective German transposition measures in the field of environmental law. Unpublished MA thesis, Rome, UNINT;
  • 2014 IDONE Ilenia, Eurolect and national legal Spanish. Linguistic-contrastive analysis of a body of legislation regarding the right of establishment and freedom to provide services. Unpublished MA thesis, Rome, UNINT;
  • 2014 BENDEGARD Saga, Begriplig EU-svenska?: Klarspråksarbetets förutsättningar inom den interinstitutionella översättningsprocessen (Plain EU Swedish? Conditions for plain language work within the inter-institutional translation process). Skrifter utgivna av Institutionen för nordiska språk vid Uppsala universitet 89. PhD dissertation, Uppsala University;
  • 2013 ZAFFINO Monica, Spanish Eurolect and national legal language: linguistic-contrastive analysis of a corpus of legislative measures in the field of transport policy. Unpublished MA thesis, Rome, UNINT;
  • 2013 TOMASELLO Roberta, Legal Spanish: linguistic-contrastive analysis of community and national varieties through a corpus of legislative measures in the livestock sector. Unpublished MA thesis, Rome, UNINT;
  • 2013 MALVASI Pierangela, Eurolect Spanish and national legal Spanish compared in an intralinguistic analysis of corpora on the right of establishment and freedom to provide services. Unpublished MA thesis, Rome, UNINT;
  • 2013 EGIDDI Claudia, Community and national varieties of legal French: linguistic-contrastive analysis of a corpus of EU directives and implementing measures regarding the protection of personal data. Unpublished MA thesis, Rome, UNINT;
  • 2013 AIELLO Enrica, English in EU legislation. English Eurolect or national legal variety? Unpublished MA thesis, Rome, UNINT;
  • 2012 SERENA Valentina, Linguistic-contrastive analysis of a corpus of European directives and Spanish transposition measures in the field of copyright. Unpublished MA thesis, Rome, UNINT;
  • 2012 SCARSELLA Marina, The vertical dimension of the Eurolect in contemporary Italian. Unpublished MA thesis, Rome, UNINT;
  • 2011 LADDER Roberta, Interlinguistic and intralinguistic analysis of legal corpora in Italian and English. Unpublished MA thesis, Rome, UNINT;
  • 2011 MIROLLA Ersilia, Directive 2000/60/EC and the national transposition laws in Germany and Austria: three varieties of German compared. Unpublished MA thesis, Rome, UNINT;
  • 2011 GIUMMARRA Elisa, Gender discrimination and sexism in language. An interlingual and intralingual comparison of a trilingual corpus of EU directives (English, Italian and Spanish). Unpublished MA thesis, Rome, UNINT;
  • 2011 CASALI Elisa, National legal Spanish and community Spanish: linguistic-contrastive analysis of a corpus of European directives and their respective transposition laws. Unpublished MA thesis, Rome, UNINT;
  • 2010 HONEY Severina, Translation in the EU context: contrastive analysis (Eng-Ita) of a corpus of EU Regulations. Unpublished MA thesis, Rome, UNINT;
  • 2003 SOSONI Vilelmini, Aspects of Lexical Cohesion in EU Texts: A Critical Study of Greek Translations and English Hybrid Texts. Unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Surrey;
  • 2003 HOFMAN Geertrui, Are there any more clear fronts? En synkron och diakron jämförelse av svenska EU-direktiv. MA-thesis, Gent, Universiteit Gent.
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