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‘Human Rights’ across time and space: a cross‐linguistic analysis of performatives in E nglish and I talian
Author(s) -
Felici Annarita
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
international journal of applied linguistics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.712
H-Index - 39
eISSN - 1473-4192
pISSN - 0802-6106
DOI - 10.1111/ijal.12022
Subject(s) - performative utterance , declaration , equivalence (formal languages) , linguistics , charter , english as a lingua franca , human rights , political science , lingua franca , psychology , computer science , sociology , law , philosophy
International treaties are usually drafted in one negotiated lingua franca and then translated into the other authentic languages. The quality of these translations must be uncontroversial because once authenticated, they become original versions with equivalent legal effect. This paper investigates semantic‐pragmatic aspects of performatives in the UN Declaration of Human Rights ( UN 1948) and in the more recent EU Charter of Fundamental Rights ( EU 2000), in E nglish and Italian. Considering the 50 years elapsing between the publications of the two treaties, the analysis aims at ascertain translational equivalence and equivalent legal effects when rendering similar and in some cases, almost repetitive provisions. The comparison will ideally contribute to reflect on the implications of multilingual translation in the current global environment with special regard to legal instruments.