Book Review: Comparative Legal LinguisticsMattilaHeikki E.S., Comparative Legal Linguistics, Ashgate2006, xviii + 347 pp., hardback, £70 ($134.95), ISBN 0-7456-4874-5 (original) (raw)

2007, Maastricht Journal of European and Comparative Law

Contemporary comparative law gives the impression of being more conscious of many more contexts of law and legal phenomena than it used to be. Black-letter law orientation appears to be barely breathing. Th e old paradigm, interested mostly in written legal norms (rules and principles) and institutions, has been challenged and, in many senses, perhaps overthrown. Contextual approaches are the major trends in the comparative study of law today. As a result we have a plural and diverse discipline: historical comparative laws, comparative jurisprudences, comparative law & economics, cultural approaches, legal traditions approach, critical comparative laws, anthropological approaches and so on and so forth. One of these general new strands is the law & language approach (in the very broad sense of those two words). Surprisingly, this language-related context of law is where the old and new schools of thought appear to partially coincide. Th us, language as a façade of law was as relevant to the arch-functionalist Ernst Rabel as it is to all of the new schools of thought emphasizing the importance of the cultural contexts of law. Yet, none of this genuinely surprises because all solemn comparative lawyers, i.e. those not relying solely on translations, are always confronted with the inconveniences concerning the translation of foreign legal language (its terminology, concepts, systematic relations etc.). Language is distinctly important to the comparative study of law, something not to be ignored. Th ere are certain comparative lawyers who have met the challenge of understanding foreign legal language with extraordinary vigour. Th e Dutchman Gerard-René de Groot is an apposite example of this: a Professor of Comparative Law and International Private Law at Maastricht University, his specialty has virtually shift ed from law to legal language, specifi cally translation, itself.