The contrast between precision and indeterminacy is an intrinsic feature of legal language. Specialist communication, and legal language has to be regarded as such, aims at utmost precision to avoid any form of ambiguity. On the other hand, laws and statutes define general rules for citizens and must be comprehensible to all. Moreover, they have to be adapted to changing social realities. All this leads to varying degrees of indeterminacy in the different legal systems. The paper describes indeterminacy in legal language and proposes ways to handle this problem with regard to the management of multilingual terminology as well as to the translation of legal texts. With respect to the former (manifesting as the lack of equivalence between concepts form different legal systems), the suggestion is for a terminographical methodology derived from principles of comparative. For the latter (translation) the importance of a harmonisation of law is stressed which implies a harmonisation of legal concepts and eventually a harmonisation of terms.
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