Functional Vocabulary in the Language of the Law - A corpus-driven analysis of the European Union written declarations

The following paper will provide a corpus-driven analysis of some specific aspect of the functional vocabulary and performative verbs characterising the language of the law in English and techniques for their translation into Italian, through the compilation of a parallel undirectional corpus of European Union (EU) written declarations. These official documents, printed and translated in all the official languages of the EU, represent a means to promote and enforce the political action of the European Parliament (EP) and Members of the European Parliament (MEPs). The linguistic features of this text type perform very important pragmatic functions with political and legal implicatures [...]. The following study will examine such implications through the analysis of specific functional terms and expressions typical of legal English, namely archaic adverbs, prepositional phrases and performative verbs, and their corrisponding Italian translations.