Translating EU Legislation from a Lingua Franca: Advantages and Disadvantages

The spread and the increasing position of English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) has become a linguistic phenomenon with huge political and socio-cultural implications. Moving from recent studies (Jenkins 2007, Mollin 2006, Seidlhofer 2001, 2005) that mention the possibility of a variety of Euro-English with continental patterns, this paper investigates the use of ELF in EU legal texts. Although multilingualism remains an unquestionable asset and equal authenticity ensures democracy before the law, language equality is achieved via multilateral translation and before that, through a pseudo-source text drafted more and more into English. The use of this practice has inevitable instrumental purposes and is evolving in an unmarked form of English with linguistic and political advantages. The specific neutrality of certain expressions and the English morphological flexibility allow a relative easy formation of EU concepts as well as a fair transfer into the other languages. From a political point of view, a language traditionally shaped on Common Law represents a neutral and diplomatic tool to serve the legal needs of Continental Europe. On the other hand, EU English remains a vehicular language drafted primarily by non-mother tongues. The hybridity of certain linguistic solutions and the convoluted syntax have not received so far the same attention as the translation of legal concepts, but they may equally impact on legal communication and on the final translation quality. Focusing above all on syntactical aspects of EU legal English, the article highlights the need for plain and neutral “European” English and the advantages of expert editing before multilingual translation