“Acting in Accordance with the Ordinary Legislative Procedure…”: Metadiscourse in EU Regulations on Immigration

Abstract

The ongoing Pan-European integration process has profoundly influenced the nature of European law and its development, demanding a review of “the ways of how language […] is materialized” (Gibová, 2009, p. 192). EU multilingualism is thus becoming an intricate concept since “EU translation is […] becoming the language of Europe” (Gibová, 2009, p. 192) encompassing a supranational view of the world conveyed in EU-wide legislation. Very much in line with this assumption, and taking into account the teaching experience in Specialised Translation Masters’ courses training would-be professional translators, this study examines a corpus of European Parliament Regulations on immigration. In order to understand whether dissimilarities and/or congruencies occur between the EU working language, i.e., English, and the Italian versions, the metadiscourse framework by Hyland (2005), comprising both interactive and interactional features, is used as the point of departure for the analysis of parallel texts. The Regulations produced by EU institutions and conveyed and transmitted both in English as a “procedural language” (Wagner, Bech, & Martίnez, 2012) as well as in Italian have been scrutinized both quantitatively and qualitatively, in order to draw precious pedagogical implications for translation studies and professional practice for future qualified and trained translators.

Parallel Corpora and ST Analysis: EU Regulations on Immigration in the Specialised Translation Classroom

“…Halliday, 1994), power asymmetry seems to give way to modalized assessment of equality. As previously noted (Giordano & Piga, 2021), the basic principle seems to be this: the 'commands' are more projected towards negotiation and dialogue. In the text under scrutiny, 'commands' are realized by the modulated clauses, which give more discretion to the addressees.…”

“…In very broad terms, the illocutionary force in both the Italian and the English version of the EU Regulation seems to be changing from a 'command' to 'a conditional-indication'. Accordingly, the power relation between the participants in the text is far more equal than asymmetrical (Giordano & Piga, 2021).…”

“…Immigration is one of the fields in which the authors are currently involved, looking at this key issue from different perspectives through the examination of several types of texts (i.e., parliamentary debates, regulations and directives, brochures and leaflets with informative purposes). Past research has focused in particular on EU debates on immigration (Giordano & Piga, 2020) or on metadiscoursal features in a corpus of EU regulations on the same topical issue (Giordano & Piga, 2021), looking at linguistic features which are fundamental to the Specialised Translation Masters' course at the University of Cagliari. As already stated (Giordano & Piga, 2021), it is evident that in order to train future professional translators, both in terms of the methodology to be acquired and the professional approaches to be developed, Specialised Translation teaching must necessarily consider several linguistic theories and methodologies.…”

“…Past research has focused in particular on EU debates on immigration (Giordano & Piga, 2020) or on metadiscoursal features in a corpus of EU regulations on the same topical issue (Giordano & Piga, 2021), looking at linguistic features which are fundamental to the Specialised Translation Masters' course at the University of Cagliari. As already stated (Giordano & Piga, 2021), it is evident that in order to train future professional translators, both in terms of the methodology to be acquired and the professional approaches to be developed, Specialised Translation teaching must necessarily consider several linguistic theories and methodologies. The purpose is to obtain a broad understanding and awareness of text typology, genre, register and style of the Source Text (ST henceforth).…”

“…The parallel texts (i.e., ST and its translation) considered here are taken from the Multilingual/Bilingual Display of the EUR Lex website, which includes aligned texts used daily in class work. Giordano and Piga (2021), Biel (2010), Bernardini and Castagnoli (2008) and previously Zanettin ( 2001) have shown how parallel corpora are precious resources for discovering well-established translation equivalents of certain legal terms and expressions. Additionally, they can raise students' awareness of professional translation strategies.…”