Thematic Organization of Legal Terminology for Translators: Designing an Ontology for Criminal Procedure in Spanish-Romanian-English

Abstract

This research arises as a response to a need identified both in the professional practice of legal translation and in the actual training process: the lack of bilingual legal materials for professional translators and interpreters in the Spanish-Romanian language combination. The main objective of this paper is to describe the process of developing a tool that allows the thematic organization of knowledge, i.e., an ontology of trilingual legal terminology (Spanish-Romanian-English) for translators, as a practical solution to this need. The tool designed is proposed as a model to be followed and adapted and it is part of a broader research process that includes a comparison of legal systems, of text types, of languages and of specific terminology considering the three countries involved (Spain, Romania and United Kingdom). It mainly includes terms related to the criminal procedure as well as a classification of offenses, all of them organized on the basis of the relationship between the main concepts they are based on.