Open educational resources on translating legal texts

Open Educational Resources (OER) are educational materials of any kind and in any medium that are published under an open licence. Such an open licence enables free access as well as free use, editing and redistribution by others with or without minor restrictions. Open educational resources and remote edu­cation have become increasingly important, especially during the coronavirus epidemic.

The present project on legal translation is freely accessible and is intended as a kind of guide that can be used by translation teachers, and especially linguists, translators or lawyers who are dealing with this topic for the first time as teachers. It may also be suitable for students on master‘s programmes, provided they already have some experience of legal texts or specialist text translation.

The course covers the basics of legal language, legal translation and a brief introduction to the basic mecha­nisms of law. It consists of four parts: Part I is a video clip briefly presenting the most important features of legal language and various translation strategies; Part II deals with basic principles of law; Part III is a case study – a “guided tour” through selected articles of the German Constitution; finally, Part IV is a glossary of basic terms of the German Constitution with Slovenian and English equivalents.

The main advantage of the course is that it is designed as a collaborative platform and can be extended to other types of legal texts and text types, other legal systems and legal languages.