Language and Culture in International Legal Communication

In the contemporary business world, partners belonging to different nations, and hence different cultures, conduct business operations in either the language of one of the parties involved or in a third, neutral language, serving as lingua franca. Thus, language skills, as an essential component of the communicative competence, imply a certain extent of implicit or explicit translating and interpreting. The functionalist approaches in translation science, and most of all the Skopos theory by J. H. Vermeer, view translation as an intercultural transfer, which inevitably entails taking into account intercultural differences. As intercultural business communication is directly affected by the legal systems of the cultures involved, the communicating parties need to be acquainted with both the source and target legal systems. This is especially the case with English, as the Anglo-American legal system, based essentially on common law, differs substantially from continental law, to which most of the European countries belong. English as the world’s most commonly used lingua franca will have to be adapted to its new function by adopting terms and concepts from other cultures and, within the EU, take into consideration the existing discrepancies between the continental and the Anglo-American legal systems. In this paper, cases of non-equivalence regarding legal terms are illustrated with examples from company law. In conclusion, some linguistic and cultural implications of the use of English as lingua franca, as well as their impact on teaching and learning practices are presented.translation, lingua franca, Skopos, cultural embeddedness

Language and culture in international legal communication

In the contemporary business world, partners belonging to different nations, and hence different cultures, conduct business operations in either the language of one of the parties involved or in a third, neutral language, serving as lingua franca. Thus, language skills, as an essential component of the communicative competence, imply a certain extent of implicit or explicit translating and interpreting. The functionalist approaches in translation science, and most of all the Skopos theory by J. H. Vermeer, view translation as an intercultural transfer, which inevitably entails taking into account intercultural differences. As intercultural business communication is directly affected by the legal systems of the cultures involved, the communicating parties need to be acquainted with both the source and target legal systems. This is especially the case with English, as the Anglo-American legal system, based essentially on common law, differs substantially from continental law, to which most of the European countries belong. English as the world`s most commonly used lingua franca will have to be adapted to its new function by adopting terms and concepts from other cultures and, within the EU, take into consideration the existing discrepancies between the continental and the Anglo-American legal systems. Inthis paper, cases of non-equivalence regarding legal terms are illustrated with examples from company law. In conclusion, some linguistic and cultural implications of the use of English as lingua franca, as well as their impact on teaching and learning practices are presented

Translating contracts as 'culturemes'

The paper proposes a translation model for contracts in which different stances, i.e. Snell Hornby’s integrated approach (1995), the functionalist views with the 'skopos' theory (Reiß & Vermeer 1984) and the concept of 'cultureme' (Oksaar 1988: 26-27; Vermeer 1983: 8; Nord 1997: 34), as well as Chesterman’s theory of 'memes' (1997) are upgraded with the findings of comparative law regarding differences between legal systems and their impacts on the corresponding legal languages. The model consists of ten phases, each addressing one of the specific linguistic and extra-linguistic aspects of the contract as a text type. When translating contracts, a very specific situation may arise with respect to the cultural embeddedness of the target text, since memes of different legal cultures may co-exist on its various levels in order to meet the 'skopos' of the translation. This is especially the case when the contracting parties decide to use a third language as a 'lingua franca', which may lack any direct correlation with the legal culture(s) underlying the contract

The Decalogue of Legal Translation – Contracts in Intercultural Legal Communication

The paper proposes a model for translating contracts which unites different translation stances (Snell Hornby’s integrated approach, the functionalist views with the skopos theory and the concept of cultureme, as well as Chesterman’s theory of memes) with the findings of comparative law regarding differences between legal systems and their impact on legal languages. The model is structured in ten stages, each addressing one of the specific linguistic and extra-linguistic aspects of the contract as a text type. When translating contracts, a very specific situation may arise with respect to the cultural embeddedness of the target text, since memes of different legal cultures may co-exist at various levels. This is especially the case when the contracting parties decide to use a third language as a lingua franca, which may lack any direct correlation with the legal culture(s) underlying the contract.En esta ponencia se propone un modelo para traducir contratos que une distintos planteamientos translatológicos (el planteamiento integrado de Snell Hornby, los enfoques funcionales con la teoría del skopos y el concepto de culturema, y la teoría de los memes de Chesterman) a las conclusiones del derecho comparado relativas a las diferencias entre sistemas legales y su impacto en los lenguajes legales. El modelo se compone de diez fases, cada una de las cuales aborda un aspecto específico lingüístico o extra-lingüístico del contrato como un tipo de texto. En la traducción de contratos se crea una situación muy específica referente al enraizamento cultural del texto meta, como los memes de culturas legales distintas pueden coexisistir en sus varios niveles. Este caso se da especialmente en situaciones en las cuales las partes contratantes utilizan una lingua franca, que puede no tener ninguna correlación con los sistemas legales considerados por el contrato

Building interpretable models for polypharmacy prediction in older chronic patients based on drug prescription records

© 2018 Kocbek et al. Background. Multimorbidity presents an increasingly common problem in older population, and is tightly related to polypharmacy, i.e., concurrent use of multiple medications by one individual. Detecting polypharmacy from drug prescription records is not only related to multimorbidity, but can also point at incorrect use of medicines. In this work, we build models for predicting polypharmacy from drug prescription records for newly diagnosed chronic patients. We evaluate the models' performance with a strong focus on interpretability of the results. Methods. A centrally collected nationwide dataset of prescription records was used to perform electronic phenotyping of patients for the following two chronic conditions: Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2D) and cardiovascular disease (CVD). In addition, a hospital discharge dataset was linked to the prescription records. A regularized regression model was built for 11 different experimental scenarios on two datasets, and complexity of the model was controlled with a maximum number of dimensions (MND) parameter. Performance and interpretability of the model were evaluated with AUC, AUPRC, calibration plots, and interpretation by a medical doctor. Results. For the CVD model, AUC and AUPRC values of 0.900 (95% [0.898-0.901]) and 0.640 (0.635-0.645) were reached, respectively, while for the T2D model the values were 0.808 (0.803-0.812) and 0.732 (0.725-0.739). Reducing complexity of the model by 65% and 48% for CVD and T2D, resulted in 3% and 4% lower AUC, and 4% and 5% lower AUPRC values, respectively. Calibration plots for our models showed that we can achieve moderate calibration with reducing the models' complexity without significant loss of predictive performance. Discussion. In this study, we found that it is possible to use drug prescription data to build a model for polypharmacy prediction in older population. In addition, the study showed that it is possible to find a balance between good performance and interpretability of the model, and achieve acceptable calibration at the same time

AKCIJA ŠKOLSKE KNJIŽNICE - PROMOCIJA ČITANJA

Interes za čitanje razvija se u različitim razdobljima, kroz različita iskustva. U tome važnu ulogu imaju i školski stručnjaci. Prije svega, školski knjižničari svjesni su te svoje misije. Stoga je aktivnosti promicanja čitanja potrebno strateški planirati. Važno je da korisnici uživaju u aktivnostima, dobiju pozitivno iskustvo i tako povećaju interes za čitanje. Proveli smo mnogo različitih aktivnosti, neke kako bi potaknuli uživanje u čitanju, a druge kako bi odgajali učenike u aktivne čitatelje. Rezultati pokazuju da su pravilno planirane aktivnosti učinkovito didaktičko sredstvo za pozitivan utjecaj na motivaciju čitanja. Provođenjem različitih akcija povećao se broj posjeta školskoj knjižnici, povećao se broj posudbi knjižnične građe a također smo detektirali sve spontanije razgovore o pročitanim knjigama