Predicaments of Legal Terminology Translation of EU-Georgia Association Agreement

Terminologija / Terminology 2025, vol. 32, pp. 1–14 Contents link / Turinio nuoroda ISSN 2669-2198 (online / elektroninis) Copyright © 2025 Khatuna Beridze. Published by the Institute of the Lithuanian Language. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licence, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. // Išleido Lietuvių kalbos institutas. Šis straipsnis yra atviros prieigos, platinamas pagal „Creative Commons‚ priskyrimo licencijos sąlygas, leidžiančias neribotai naudoti, platinti ir atkurti turinį bet kokioje laikmenoje, nurodant autorių ir šaltinį. Received: / Gauta: 2024-12-09. Accepted: / Priimta: 2025-08-27. 1 PREDICAMENTS OF LEGAL TERMINOLOGY TRANSLATION OF EU-GEORGIA ASSOCIATION AGREEMENT Teisės terminijos vertimo sunkumai ES ir Sakartvelo asociacijos susitarime KHATUNA BERIDZE Batumi Shota Rustaveli State University E-mail: [email protected].ge ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5333-0722 Fields of research: Translation Studies, Corpus linguistics, Legal terminology translation, Literary translation, Postcolonial translation theory and practice, Cognitive linguistics and translation. https://doi.org/10.35321/term32-05 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ABSTRACT The paper examines terminology translation problems in the EU-Georgia Association Agreement using examples from a custom-built corpus at Batumi Shota Rustaveli State University. While experts recommend avoiding term variation for clarity (Strandvik 2012; DGT 2015; Bajčić & Martinović 2018; Kordić 2020), the study argues that variation in EU texts may not always cause inconsistency in Georgian. For example, English terms counterfeiting, forging, and false converge into one Georgian term, გაყალბება [gaq’albeba], without loss of accuracy. Similarly, circumvention and evasion both translate as სანქციებისგან თავის არიდება [sank c iebisgan t avis arideba], preserving meaning. This shows that quasi-synonymous variants in English can be rendered by one Georgian equivalent. The paper also stresses the need for pre-translational analysis and referencing of terminological resources to capture conceptual distinctions. Misuse of convergence and approximation as synonyms, or mistranslating Anti-Circumvention Mechanism as Anti-Counterfeiting Mechanism, demonstrate how neglecting contextual analysis can distort meaning. KEYWORDS: legal translation, terminological collocations, variation, corpus-based, EU-Georgia Association Agreement. ANOTACIJA Straipsnyje nagrinėjamos terminų vertimo problemos ES asociacijos susitarime su Sakartvelu, pasitelkiant pavyzdžius iš Batumio Šotos Rustavelio valstybiniame universitete specialiai sukurto tekstyno. Nors ekspertai dėl aiškumo pataria vengti terminų variantiškumo (Strandvik 2012; DGT 2015; Bajčić, Martinović 2018; Kordić 2020), tyrime argumentuojama, kad variantiškumas ES tekstuose ne visada lemia 2 nevienodumą kartvelų kalboje. Pavyzdžiui, angliški terminai counterfeiting (klastojimas), forging (klastojimas) ir false (klaidingas) kartvelų kalboje perteikiami vienu terminu გაყალბება [gaq’albeba], neprarandant tikslumo. Panašiai yra ir su terminais circumvention (vengimas) bei evasion (vengimas): abu jie verčiami kaip სანქციებისგან თავის არიდება [sank c iebisgan t avis arideba], išlaikant prasm . Tai rodo, kad kvazisinoniminiai variantai anglų kalboje gali būti verčiami vienu kartvelišku atitikmeniu. Straipsnyje taip pat pabrėžiamas poreikis iki vertimo atlikti analiz ir nurodyti terminologinius išteklius, siekiant perteikti sąvokų skirtumus. Konvergencijos ir aproksimacijos painiojimas laikant jas sinonimais arba netinkamas AntiCircumvention Mechanism (Kovos su vengimu priemonė) vertimas kaip Anti-Counterfeiting Mechanism (Kovos su klastojimu priemonė) parodo, kad kontekstinės analizės nepaisymas gali iškraipyti prasm . ESMINIAI ŽODŽIAI: teisinis vertimas, terminologinės kolokacijos, variantiškumas tekstyno duomenų pagrindu, ES asociacijos susitarimas su Sakartvelu. INTRODUCTION To ensure the quality of multilingual legislative texts in the European Union, several initiatives have been established, including the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Translation, the JRC-Acquis corpus, and the IATE terminology database maintained by the Directorate-General for Translation of the European Parliament. Additionally, theoretical and empirical studies leveraging corpus methodologies have addressed the challenges of translating multilingual legal texts, leading to the development of various recommendations. The European Commission’s Directorate-General for Translation has implemented a quality management framework to ensure that translations meet the needs of direct clients, partner organisations, and end-users (DGT Translation Quality Guidelines 2015: 1). However, despite the availability of advanced technological tools, linguistic resources, and methodological guidelines, challenges in translating legal terminology texts persist across all EU Member States. Editing processes have identified common translation errors, categorised as incorrect translations, inappropriate terminology, omissions, redundancies, and issues related to clarity, grammar, spelling, and punctuation (Stefaniak 2023: 366). In Lithuania, the Government adopted a resolution in 1999, which assigned the Translation, Documentation and Information Centre to translate the acquis. The acquis, consisting of primary and secondary binding legislation, and representing a considerable 95 volumes of acts, roughly estimated at 60,000–70,000 pages of the Official Journal (qtd. from the ‘Regular Report from the qua Commission on Lithuania’s Progress Towards Accession’ 2002: 130) 1 . Comparably, as part of the EU ascending procedures, translation of the Georgian-EU Association Agreement, ratified in 2014 by the EU Parliament, comprises 750 pages by now. The task of translation of the EU-Georgia Association Agreement (AA) was initially assigned to the translation department at the Foreign Ministry of Georgia, and later re-assigned to the translation department at the Ministry of Justice. The present article is part of a larger-scale corpus-based study of the EU-Georgia AA to develop a corpus-based translation analysis and methodology for the translated Acquis, as well as legal texts (Beridze, Diasamidze 2025: 354). The objective of the paper is to outline 1 Available at: www.europarl.europa.eu/meetdocs/committees/empl/20021021/02-1406EN.pdf. 3 the urgency of the terminological uniformity and underscore the critical need for a consistent, unified and standardised approach to legal terminology management in Georgia, as part and parcel of the nation’s European integration efforts. To ensure ac curate and effective implementation of the AA, the paper examines how quasi-synonymous legal terms and terminological collocations in English are translated into Georgian and how terminological variations lead to semantic inconsistencies/inaccuracies. The research seeks to determine to what extent terminological variation, whether involving single terms or collocations, impacts the functional equivalence of translated legal content. The study recommends pre-translational term analysis, contextual interpretation, and the consultation of authoritative terminological databases (such as IATE) in mitigating conceptual and semantic divergence. THEORETICAL APPROACHES TO LEGAL TRANSLATION L. Biel (2019: 25, 26) summarises several types of linguistic-translational challenges that accompany the drafting of EU texts: ‚the source text/language/culture, target text/language/culture, equivalence, translation process, quality‛. EU multilingual texts must be consistent in content and terminology, ‚between each other (which is referred to as multilingual concordance)‛ (Stefaniak 2017:117), which means not only equivalence with the original text, but also concordance between all versions of the same text in 23 languages. Koskinen calls equivale nce ‚a priori‛ feature of EU translation (Koskinen 2000: 49, qtd. in Biel 2019: 25). The original itself creates several difficulties for the EU: when a text is written in the so-called original language, it takes 5–10 steps to align it with other language texts. The process is carried out by constantly switching from language to language, comparing, making changes and rewriting (see Doczekalska 2009: 360; Koskinen 2001: 293), and the final document may differ significantly from the original text (Koskinen 2001: 293). Legal texts in European languages, including English, are characterised by the influence of Latinisms. This influence originates from the translation of Roman law documents from Latin (Graziadei et al. 2005: 45) and continues to shape the stylistic features of modern legal texts in these languages (Biel 2014: 332–333; Kordić 2020: 235–236). In addition to Latinisms, translating legal texts and terminology is complicated by other factors, such as variations in terminology across legal and legislative documents. Biel (2023: 90) distinguishes between the concepts: variation, synonymy and polysemy drawing on a definition of a term in the ISO terminology standards (ISO 1087 2019: 3, 7), stating that a legal term can be defined as a designation – a linguistic expression – which represents a concept, that is a unit of knowledge, in the legal domain. In the ideal world, a concept is evoked by one term only; that is, there is a one-to-one relation of form and meaning, known as univocity or monoreferentiality. It is worth noting that the terminology field nowadays prefers the term variation and variant over synonymy (Biel 2023: 91–92). When drafting or translating legislative texts, experts recommend avoiding variation of 4 terms to enhance consistency and clarity (Strandvik 2012: 39–40; DGT Translation Quality Guidelines 2015: 11; Bajčić, Martinović 2018: 212; Kordić 2020: 241). The existence of term variation in texts is not a new linguistic phenomenon. For example, Gambashidze (1988) discussed how synonymy arises when everyday vocabulary is adapted as terminology. This researcher also highlighted that the borrowing of foreign words often leads to synonymy, with international terms coexisting alongside native ones. Gambashidze (1988: 38–40) advocated for the isomorphism of concepts in terminology and criticised the emergence of lexical doublets in language. Since the law permeates everyday life, legal terminology often overlaps with common vocabulary. Words originating from everyday language frequently acquire specialised legal meanings (Kordić 2020: 235–236). For instance, English legal jargon for a single concept may include synonymous terms like violation, breach, infringement, and null and void (Gozdz-Roszkowski 2013). This overlap between common vocabulary and legal terminology can lead to semantic ambiguity, a challenge also noted in Georgian (Ghambashidze 1986; Arabuli 2016; Margalitadze 2020). Studies reveal the increasing use of common words as legal terms. Legal communication, like any specialised communication, operates under various constraints. From an onomasiological point of view, lexemes are synonymous and equivalent if they have the same denotative meaning. It is considered essential to combine onomasiological approaches (focusing on defining concepts) with semasiological ones, and study the meanings of synonymous terms and common words in specific contexts (Heylen, Steurs 2014: 96). TRANSLATION PROBLEMS IN THE ASSOCIATION AGREEMENT FOR GEORGIA Research methodology To carry out the research for the present paper, I used the resources of the corpus analyser which I developed at the Translation and Interdisciplinary Research Centre of Batumi Shota Rustaveli State University (The corpus of the BSU Translation and Interdisciplinary Centre, www.corpus.bsu.edu.ge) specifically for the corpus-based translation research, including analyses and methodology for the translated Acquis, as well as legal texts. The custom-built unidirectional corpus comprises EU-Georgia AA, Titles I– IV and Articles 1–276 in both English and Georgian. Legal terms were manually tagged during the textual markup stage using custom XML tags developed for the platform www.corpus.bsu.edu.ge, although the TagSet did not follow standard tag assignment protocols. The processing was conducted in three stages: comparative analysis of parallel texts, tagging, and manual alignment of English and Georgian Articles in XML format. The corpus is encoded in XML according to TEI P4 standards, with each language forming a separate TEI body. The software automatically aligns bilingual texts and generates bilingual lexicons for each XML file. It also provides statistical data on term distribution, which 5 supports the post-extraction qualitative analysis and the evaluation of legal translation quality. Results and discussion The following analysis will focus on specific examples. An example below, extracted (Figure 1) 2 , is part of the translation analysis of the EU-Georgia Association Agreement conducted at the Centre for Translation and Interdisciplinary Studies at Batumi Shota Rustaveli State University. It illustrates the instance when terms convergence and approximation are considered as either synonymous or quasi-synonymous, and translated with the same term, as found in Title II, Article 3, Objectives of Political Dialogue, of the translation of the Georgia-EU Association Agreement. Figure 1. Screenshot 1 from the corpus of the BSU Translation and Interdisciplinary Centre, www.corpus.bsu.edu.ge Figure 2. Screenshot 2 from the corpus of the BSU Translation and Interdisciplinary Centre, www.corpus.bsu.edu.ge The paragraph illustrates (Figure 2) that the translation provides the term დაახლოება [daakhloeba] 3 as the translational equivalent for the English term convergence: 2 Available at: www.corpus.bsu.edu.ge. 3 For transliteration of Georgian I use Georgian – National transliteration system, see: https://www.translitteration.com/transliteration/en/georgian/iso-9984/. 6 To deepen political association and increase political and security policy convergence and effectiveness. გააღრმაოს პოლიტიკური ასოცირება და გაზარდოს პოლიტიკური და უსაფრთხოების პოლიტიკის საკითხებზე დაახლოება და ეფექტიანობა. gaaḡrmaos politikuri asoc ireba da gazardos politikuri da usap rt xoebis politikis sakit xebze daaxloeba da ep ek tianoba. There are other instances, including the term convergence and its Georgian translation as დაახლოება . All in all, there are 102 cases of the term convergence translated as daakhloeba in 390 articles of the Body text, excluding annexes. An excerpt from the same text and its translation points out that the same terms are repeatedly used in the source and translation texts, and daakhloeba is suggested as the translational equivalent for the term convergence, as the example from the corpus verifies (Figure 3): (k) to provide all benefits of closer political association (lg_trm) between the EU and Georgia, including increased security policy (lg_trm) convergence to all citizens of Georgia within its internationally recognised borders (lg_trm). (k) უზრუნველყოს, რომ საქართველოსა და ევროკავშირს შორის მჭიდრო პოლიტიკური ასოცირების (lg_trm) შედეგად მიღებული ყველა სარგებელი, გაზრდილი უსაფრთხოების პოლიტიკის (lg_trm) საკითხებზე დაახლოების ჩათვლით, გავრცელდეს საქართველოს ყველა მოქალაქეზე, საერთაშორისოდ აღიარებულ საზღვრებში (lg_trm). Figure 3. Title II, Article 3 Apart from the above examples, including the contextual use of the term convergence in the collocations: political and security policy convergence, security policy convergence to all citizens of Georgia, the other example is convergence on foreign and security matters: This will increase the effectiveness of political cooperation and promote convergence on foreign and security matters. აღნიშნული გაზრდის პოლიტიკური თანამშრომლობის ეფექტიანობასა და ხელს შეუწყობს საგარეო და უსაფრთხოების პოლიტიკის საკითხებზე დაახლოებას . Full paragraph of the example is provided from the corpus (Figure 4): 7 Political dialogue on all areas of mutual interest, including foreign and security matters (lg_trm) as well as domestic reform (lg_trm), shall be further developed and strengthened between the Parties. This will increase the effectiveness of political cooperation (lg_trm) and promote convergence on foreign and security matters (lg_trm), strengthening relations in an innovative way. პოლიტიკური დიალოგი საერთო ინტერესთა ყველა სფეროში, საგარეო და უსაფრთხოების საკითხებისა (lg_trm) და შიდასახელმწიფოებრივი რეფორმის (lg_trm) ჩათვლით, მხარეებს შორის კიდევ უფრო განვითარდება და გაღრმავდება. აღნიშნული გაზრდის პოლიტიკური თანამშრომლობის (lg_trm) ეფექტიანობასა და ხელს შეუწყობს საგარეო და უსაფრთხოების პოლიტიკის (lg_trm) საკითხებზე დაახლოებას, ურთიერთობების გაძლიერებას ამბიციური და ინოვაციური გზით. Figure 4. Title II, Article 3 In back translation, the Georgian term daakhloeba corresponds to the English term approximation, which translation assumes as a variant of the English term. However, in IATE definitions, convergence and approximation denote distinct concepts and are not synonyms/variants. For instance, in the IATE entry 3564197, these terms denote different concepts, having different semantic value: ‚Committee on Economic Integration, Legal Approximation and Convergence with EU Pol icies‛. The title identifies the role of the standing parliamentary committee within the Euronest Parliamentary Assembly, which is responsible for further economic approximation between the EU and its Eastern European Partners, supporting the socio-economic reforms of the Eastern European Partners, as well as trade and investment liberalization, leading to convergence with EU laws and standards to establish a network of deep and comprehensive free trade areas. The function of the committee indicates taking a series of step-by-step procedures aimed at achieving common political goals, demonstrating again that approximation and convergence are two distinct terms and do not represent quasi-synonymous functional equivalents. When translating this entry into Georgian, using only one term daakhloeba would no longer suffice to convey the meanings of both Approximation and Convergence. Hence, its translation shall be: ეკონომიკური ინტეგრაციის სამართლებრივი დაახლოებისა და ევროკავშირის პოლიტიკასთან თანხვედრის კომისია [ekonomikuri integrac iis samart lebrivi daaxloebisa da evrokavširis politikast an t anxvedris komisia] ‘Committee on Economic Integration, Legal Approximation and Convergence with EU Policies’. As tested in the concordancer, the term n (t anxvedris is a case form of the term) is conceptually and semantically corresponding equivalent to convergence. Similarly, its variant თანხვდომა [t anxvdoma] can also be considered as a functional equivalent of the term convergence. Furthermore, the terminological dictionary of the Georgian Legislative Herald offers both transliteration and translation of the term convergence in various contexts. The instance of the transliteration of convergence as კონვერგენცია [konvergenc ia] yields no 8 further examples, while the translation of the collocation convergence of a number sequence as რიცხვითი მიმდევრობის კრებადობა [ric xvit i mimdevrobis krebadoba] ‘collectivity of a numerical sequence’ back translates the term as conceptually and semantically differing variant. It allows for terminological variation of the Latin term and the mistranslated Georgian variant daakhloeba that exacerbates the problem. The following example (Figure 5) is from Article 2, paragraph 24, of Title IV of the Agreement: Acquis Eng. ST query file xml 4444 Title IV Section 2 Article 24 Acquis Geo. TT query file xml 4444 Title IV Section 2 Article 24 4. The import of products originating in Georgia listed in Annex II-C to this Agreement shall be subject to the anti-circumvention mechanism (lng_trm) set out in Article 27 of this Agreement. 4. საქართველოში წარმოშობილი პროდუქტის იმპორტი, რომელიც ჩამოთვლილია ამ შეთანხმების II-C დანართში, დაექვემდებარება გაყალბების საწინააღმდეგო მექანიზმს (lng_trm) წინამდებარე შეთანხმების 27-ე მუხლის შესაბამისად. Article 27 მუხლი 27 Anti-circumvention mechanism (lng_trm) for agricultural products and processed agricultural products 1. The products listed in Annex II-C to this Agreement are subject to the anti-circumvention mechanism (lng_trm) set out in this Article. The average annual volume of imports from Georgia into the Union for each of those products is provided in Annex II-C to this Agreement. გაყალბების საწინააღმდეგო მექანიზმი (lng_trm) სასოფლო-სამეურნეო პროდუქტებისა და სასოფლო-სამეურნეო გადამუშავებული პროდუქტებისთვის 1. წინამდებარე შეთანხმების II-C დანართში მოცემული პროდუქტები ექვემდებარება ამ მუხლით განსაზღვრულ გაყალბების საწინააღმდეგო მექანიზმს (lng_trm) ამ პროდუქტების თითოეული კატეგორიის საქართველოდან ევროკავშირში იმპორტის საშუალო წლიური მოცულობა მოცემულია ამ შეთანხმების II-C დანართში Figure 5. Title IV Article 2, paragraph 24 The example illustrates that the term anti-circumvention mechanism is translated as გაყალბების საწინააღმდეგო მექანიზმი [gaq’albebis sats’inaaghmdego mekanizmi] which is back translated as anti-counterfeiting mechanism. According to the IATE source 3575478, the term circumvention device is defined as: any control device, software, 9 component or part that alters the energy demand on a product during any test procedure, resulting in measurements that are unrepresentative of the product's true characteristics that occur during normal use under comparable conditions. Depending on its function, the term anti-circumvention mechanism can be more accurately translated as მანიპულაციის საწინააღმდეგო მექანიზმი [manipulac iis sacinaaḡmdego mek anizmi] that back translates as anti-manipulation mechanism, while circumvention device can be translated as მანიპულაციის ხელსაწყო [manipulirebis xelsacqo] that back translates as manipulation device. Additionally, the IATE source 141062 includes the term anti-circumvention measure, which can also be translated as მანიპულაციის საწინააღმდეგო ზომა [manipulac iis sacinaaḡmdego zoma] that in English back translation would be antimanipulation measure. The term gaq’albebis sats’inaaghmdego (anti-counterfeiting) fails to capture the original meaning, which implies that the law is circumvented through technological intervention. Theoreticians advocate for determining the qualitative and quantitative correspondence of source and target terms or their equivalence within a specific context, emphasising the importance of both context and purpose when translating terms (de Groot 2006: 424–425). The term circumvention appears in other contexts; for example, the IATE source 3628171 lists sanctions circumvention and sanctions evasion as synonymous variants. These terms are defined as: ‘A deliberate attempt to remove from a transaction or series of transactions the participation of sanctioned entities, or individuals, or to conceal these facts’. In this context, the Georgian term gaq’albebis / counterfeiting would no longer serve as a functional equivalent of circumvention; transliteration of the term into Georgian as სანქციების მანიპულაცია [sank c iebis manipulac ia], sanctions manipulation would be more appropriate. Using სანქციების გაყალბება [sank c iebis gaqalbeba] sanctions counterfeiting would distort the semantic meaning and fail to preserve the equivalent meaning (Reiß & Vermeer 2014: 29) of the original phrase. Regarding the terminological variants: sanctions evasion and sanctions circumvention, the terms circumvention and evasion function as contextual synonyms. In Georgian these variant terms are translated as სანქციებისგან თავის არიდება [sank c iebisgan t avis arideba], back translated as sanctions avoidance. Translating both sanctions circumvention and sanctions evasion as sank c iebisgan t avis arideba results in a single Georgian equivalent for two distinct English variant terms. If one of the variant terms: sanctions circumvention and sanctions evasion were translated as სანქციების მანიპულაცია [sank c iebis manipulac ia] back t ranslated as manipulation of the sanctions, it would result in the emergence of variant terms in Georgian: sank c iebis manipulac ia and sank c iebisgan t avis arideba. The term evasion also appears in contexts like tax evasion, for which the Georgian language had an earlier established equivalent გადასახადებისგან თავის არიდება [gadasaxadebisgan t avis arideba], back translated as tax avoidance, and, presumably, the same Georgian term was extrapolated on the two English variant terms.