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Observing Eurolects: Corpus analysis of linguistic variation in EU law
Edited by Laura Mori
[Studies in Corpus Linguistics 86] 2018
► pp. 268–293

Chapter 11
Observing Eurolects

The case of Maltese

Although Maltese is genetically a Semitic language, several technical terms, including those used within EU institutions, are integrated or non-integrated loanwords of Italian or English origin. Contact is also evident in the morphology of Maltese, and concatenative structures are productive through analogical processes, often based on Italian affixes. The description of the Maltese language version of EU documentation, as well as corpus-based considerations of the language variety used in EU directives (corpus A) and legal notices (corpus B), provides insights into this variety that relies heavily on Romance words, although others of Arabic origin are registered widely too. Loanwords from English are also present, albeit in limited numbers. Overall, no major differences emerge between the two corpora, and one cannot conclude that Maltese Eurolect constitutes a variety in its own right.

Keywords: Maltese, linguistics, translation, law, European Union
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Legal drafting, EU Directive transposition and translation
  • 3.Qualitative analysis: Intra-linguistic variability
    • 3.1Findings
      • 3.1.1Romance to Semitic
      • 3.1.2Variation in use of Romance words
      • 3.1.3Semitic to Romance
      • 3.1.4Variation in use of Semitic lexemes
  • 4.Quantitative analysis
    • 4.1Lexical frequency of use
    • 4.2Contact-induced and EU-rooted morphological patterns
    • 4.3Contact-induced syntactic phenomena
  • 5.Discussion
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 6 December 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/scl.86.11por
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Cited by

Cited by 3 other publications

Harwood, Mark
2022. Europeanization and language: the impact of EU language status on Maltese. Journal of Contemporary European Studies 30:3 ► pp. 405 ff. DOI logo
Mori, Laura
2018. Chapter 14. Conclusions. In Observing Eurolects [Studies in Corpus Linguistics, 86], ► pp. 369 ff. DOI logo
Mori, Laura & Benedikt Szmrecsanyi
2021. Mapping Eurolects. Languages in Contrast 21:2 ► pp. 186 ff. DOI logo

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