Languages for specific purposes and dynamics of national identity

Creating and using language for special purposes reflects a rather high level of human needs in the hierarchy proposed by an American psychologist A. Maslow through creative activities and self-actualisation. The understanding of one’s own belonging and identity as a manner of self-actualisation may happen through specific language usage. The article focuses on the review of the emerging European identity patterns found in the professional lexis of three sample European languages from the perspective of such disciplines as philosophy and linguistic history. In the first part of the article authors reflect on the key traceable characteristic features of European identity forms: a closed form of identity, an open form of identity and a destructive denial of identity as a transition device from one form into another. On the basis of the linguistic survey of historical experiences as traced in British, Lithuanian and Russian legal language vocabulary formation, it is concluded that changes in legal languages are reflective of social experiences and may be viewed as identity forming mechanisms