Book Review: Comparative Legal Linguistics
| Date | 01 June 2007 |
| DOI | 10.1177/1023263X0701400205 |
| Published date | 01 June 2007 |
| Author | Jaakko Husa |
| Subject Matter | Book Review |
14 MJ 2 (2007) 201
BOOK REVIEW
Heikk i E.S . Matti la, Comparative Legal Lingui stics, Ashgate 20 06, xvi ii + 347 pp.,
hardback, £70 ($134.95), ISBN 0–7456–4 874–5
§1
Contemporary comparative law gives t he impression of being more conscious of many
more contexts of law and legal phenomena than it use d to be. Black-letter law orientation
ap pe a rs t o b e b a re ly br e at h in g . e old paradigm, intereste d mostly in written lega l norms
(rules and principles) and instit utions, has been challenged and, i n many senses, perhaps
overthrown. Context ual approaches are the major trends in the compar ative study of law
today. As a result we have a plural and diverse discipline: historical comparative laws,
comparative jurisprudences, comparative law & economics, cultur al approaches, legal
traditions approach, critical comparative laws, ant hropological 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). Surprising ly, this language-related context of law
is where the old and new schools of thoug ht appear to partially coi ncide. us, language
as a façade of law was as relevant to t he arch-functionalist Ernst R abel as it is to all of the
new schools of thought emphasizing t he importance of the cultural c ontexts of law. Yet,
none of this genuinely surprises because all solem n comparative lawyers, i.e. t hose not
relying solely on trans lations, are always confronted with t he inconveniences concerning
the translat ion of foreign legal language (its termi nology, concepts, systematic relations
etc.).
Language is distinctly i mportant to the comparative study of law, something not
to be ignored. ere are certain comparative lawyers who have met the challenge
of understanding foreign lega l language with extraordinary vigour. e Dutchman
Gerard-René de Groot is an apposite example of t his: a Professor of Comparative Law
and International Private Law at Maast richt University, his specialty has virt ually shi ed
from law to legal language, speci cally translation, itself. e author of Comparat ive
Legal Lingu istics, Professor Heik ki E.S. Mat tila (b. 1947), seems to have undergone a
similar type of intellectua l transformation – from (comparative) lawyer to comparative
legal linguist. A lawyer by profession, Mattila is a native Finn and Finnish-speaker,
and a Professor of Legal Linguistics in the Faculty of Law at the University of Lapland,
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