Legal Lexicography

The Possible Dream: Perfecting Bilingual Law Dictionaries by Distinguishing Better Examples from Bad

by Dennis Kim-Prieto

Co-authored with Coen van Laer, Law Librarian at Maastricht University, this article manuscript is taken from a presentation that both authors jointly delivered before the 29th Annual Course of the International Association of Law Librarians, held 5‐8 September 2010 in The Hague, Netherlands.

As the practice of law crosses national (and linguistic) borders with increasing frequency, the need for tools that... more As the practice of law crosses national (and linguistic) borders with increasing frequency, the need for tools that facilitate the transnational practice of law becomes more acute. Bilingual legal dictionaries (BLDs) are one critical such tool, as they offer access to legal systems as well as the languages of these systems. Unfortunately, librarians have offered scant criticism of BLDs, many of which are not particularly useful. This article summarizes critical problems with BLDs and offers an approach to resolving these problems by focusing upon the quality of the entries, or definitions, that BLDs provide.