Speaker 0 00:00:00 From a more practical point of view, specifically, I want to see what that looks like in legal practice and what happens when multilingual lawyers start practicing law. What they do with that language, how they use that language. Were they properly trained in, um, using that language? What other
Speaker 1 00:00:19 Kind of education present? Having business before the Honor Supreme front of the United States.
Speaker 2 00:00:25 Welcome to the US Law Essentials Law and Language Podcast, the legal English podcast for non-native English speakers that helps you improve your English listening, improve your legal English vocabulary, and build your knowledge of American legal culture. Hi, this is Daniel. And before we begin today's episode, I wanna remind you that US Law Essentials offers online courses in legal, English and online courses in US law. Our courses are designed for international attorneys, students, translators, and bar candidates. If you have any questions, please contact Daniel
[email protected]. Also, please visit
[email protected] and join us on Facebook and LinkedIn. And now, today's episode,
Speaker 3 00:01:19 Welcome to US Law Essentials Law and Language podcast. I'm your host, Stephen Horowitz, and today we continue our series of interviews with multilingual lawyers, with our special guest lawyer, legal translator, and professor Paula Clamor. Uh, but first before we start, a shout out to one of this podcast super fans, Pablo Clamor. Pablo is from Argentina and recently moved to Washington DC because his wife Paula Clamor, uh, became one of my legal English faculty colleagues at Georgetown Law. But it was only after I met Paula that I learned that Pablo was already a regular listener of the podcast. So, Pablo, thanks for listening, and if anyone else out there is a regular listener and wants to let us know, or if you know someone who is a regular listener and you wanna let us know about them, just email Daniel us law essentials.com and let us know and we'll give a shout out on a future episode.
Speaker 3 00:02:20 And now, let me tell you about today's multilingual lawyer guest, Professor Paula Clammer. Um, she was previously Paula Arturo, but recently changed, uh, her name officially to Paula Clamor. So you might know her previously as Paula Arturo. I first met Paula, uh, because of an article about commas, which we'll talk about in a little bit. Um, and then she was a member of the et l legal English Google Group, which is a, a Google group for the legal English community. Um, and, uh, she has a law degree from the university dive that Palomo in bu. Uh, and she is also a dissertation away from a PhD in law from from university dad, the PMO as well. Um, she has a specialization in international human rights law from UN University Dad Al, and apologies for my Spanish pronunciation. Uh, and she's also done a summer legal institute through the Fordham Law School. Um, and she studied translation and interpretation at institute, though Luci Barnes, uh, with a specialization in medical translation. And Paula is also a colleague of mine. She is part of the legal English faculty at Georgetown Law School. So, welcome, Paula.
Speaker 0 00:03:42 Thank you Steven.
Speaker 3 00:03:44 Um, it's so nice to finally have you on the podcast because you, you greatly embody what a multilingual lawyer is. Um, thank you. So, so first, to prove that you're a multilingual lawyer, I have to ask you, what languages do you speak?
Speaker 0 00:03:59 Okay, well, I'm bilingual in Spanish and English. And when I say bilingual, I mean that I'm equally fluent in both languages. Um, so those are my two working languages and they're my strongest languages. Um, and then I try really hard <laugh> with a couple of other languages. I try very hard with French, uh, Italian and Brazilian Portuguese. Out of the three I'm closest to having, what I would say is, um, relatively good communication skills in Brazilian Portuguese. So Italian and French are very passive languages for me. I grew up hearing Italian, so I understand it when I hear it, but I don't actually speak it well. Um, and I read French because the whole point of learning French was to be able to read certain books, um, in their original language and kind of understand, uh, what I was reading without having to go through a translator. So French is more of a, of, um, a language that I can appreciate passively than one that I can actively do things with, like order a baguette if I go to France
Speaker 3 00:05:08 <laugh>. So, So you're really lingual.
Speaker 0 00:05:12 Um, well, I, I don't, I don't know. I'm not confident enough in my other <laugh> languages to say that. I would say try <laugh>. I try to be lingual.
Speaker 3 00:05:21 Let me, let me rephrase that. Compared to most Americans, you're poly
Speaker 0 00:05:26 <laugh> <laugh>, but compared to Europeans, for example, many of my, uh, colleagues in the translation world in Europe are actually equally fluent in three or four languages. Right. So compared to some of my European languages, my, my language skills are pretty sad. <laugh>. Right, right. So it just depends. Right? Depends who we're comparing it to. It's all relative <laugh>.
Speaker 3 00:05:48 Great. And and what countries have you lived in before or been to?
Speaker 0 00:05:52 Um, well I lived in, uh, Brazil when I was a kid for a very brief, uh, period of time. Oh,
Speaker 3 00:06:00 What the Lego
Speaker 0 00:06:03 <laugh>? Yeah. And, and I loved Brazil, by the way. Uh, I think it's one of my favorite places in the world. And, um, I did spend some time, very little time in Mexico also as a child. Um, but countries that I've been to a bunch, um, I've, I'm a big, well, I also lived here in the US of course, when I was a kid as well. Um, and, but I mean, I've visited several countries, particularly European countries. I'm a big fan of Spain. One of my favorite cities in the world is Madrid. Um, and I've been to all over the place, including, uh, Budapest, uh, Czech Republic, and to sort of, um, checking out European culture, which I'm a big fan of.
Speaker 3 00:06:50 So, And, and now I wanna ask you a, about your career. Um, it, it seems like you wear three different hats or, or you have a, you have a a hat shelf with three different hats on it. Um, and one is law. You have a, you have, you have training as a lawyer or you have a law degree. Um, another is translation and another is teaching as a professor.
Speaker 0 00:07:17 Um, yeah, so I think it was kind of inevitable for me to end up that way just because I grew up bilingual. Um, and when you grow up bilingual and then you move to a Spanish speaking country like I did, you end up teaching all the time cuz everyone wants to learn English, um, and everyone wants to ask you about English. And so you, you end up, you, you somehow end up doing that and you end up translating. So it was a really natural transition for me, um, when I, when my family moved back to Argentina, um, to just go into, uh, like language related fields. Um, yeah. And, and also I ended up in law school because I liked the legal side of translation.
Speaker 3 00:08:05 And when you say you moved back, where, where had you lived previously? You mentioned Brazil. Had you lived in the US also?
Speaker 0 00:08:12 Yeah, I lived here when I was a kid, um, here in the US uh, as a child. And my family moved back to Argentina when I was in my teens. So yeah, that, that's when I, uh, reconnected with Aine culture. And that was when I became short of an ad hoc teacher and translator for people until I realized you could actually make a living out of that.
Speaker 3 00:08:35 And do you, if and when you speak Spanish, can people tell that, that you didn't grow up in your early years in Spanish? Or are you, are you, do you have any sort of accent or, or, or indicator that people pick up on?
Speaker 0 00:08:50 Um, no, not anymore. When I first moved to Argentina, I had had a little bit of an accent, but it wasn't so much a foreign accent as much as it was just strange for the city that I moved to. So we moved to win and when I first got there, people thought I was from one of the other Argentine provinces, they would just ask me what province I was from cuz they couldn't quite place my accent. But that only lasted I think the first year that I was there. Eventually I picked up on the bu sided accent and now nobody knows.
Speaker 3 00:09:24 So can you, can you talk more about your interest in law? Did you go to law school because you knew you wanted to do translation or was that something, or did it go the other way around?
Speaker 0 00:09:36 Um, yeah, so I went to law school because I wanted to be a really, really good legal translator. So at one point when, when I first started translating, I thought I was gonna specialize in medical translation. I had an interest just in that field. It was really, um, it was a growing field at the time and it was fascinating and it was very challenging and I liked to be challenged. Um, but then for some reason I ended up getting a lot of freelance translation work that was in law. And in the beginning I did what all newbies do, which is I would take on everything <laugh>. And then at some point I realized that I needed to know more. And the more I learned about the law, the more interested I became in it. And, um, and at some point I just thought if I wanted to be an excellent legal translator, then the best way to achieve that would be to go to law school. So I could really understand what I was translating more in depth than I could at that point in my career.
Speaker 3 00:10:40 And then as you, when you finished your degree in translation, what kind of legal translating did you find yourself, um, sort of gravitating towards? Where, what, what kind of focus did it take on?
Speaker 0 00:10:54 Um, so my transition in translation, I, I mean just from, from being sort of a specialist, working as a specialist translator to getting into the legal field was actually through, um, a bunch of human rights organizations. I just happened to have an interest in, um, human rights law and I happened to know people in certain, um, particular fields that would send me work. And so a lot of it started there. Um, but then there was also some law related work that I was getting through, uh, some companies that were working in Bueno at the time. And so they were sending me work. So I had two different kinds of texts that were coming my way. Um, some were very much related to human rights and ethical issues behind the law, and others were more practical, you know, like contracts. And, um, it was mostly contracts come to think of it, the the kind of things that they were telling, sending me at the time. Um, some memos just somebody needed to maybe make a decision and so they would ask for a memo to be translated. And I was getting a lot of that kind of work at first.
Speaker 3 00:12:07 So at a certain point you started working for the law firm of Mava or Fat Mial in Bueno, which I think is the largest law firm in Argentina, Is that right?
Speaker 0 00:12:18 Yeah, yeah. Um, so that was much later in my career. That was what I arguably toward the end of my career in translation, I was like 20 years into it. Um, and I had, by then I had already done a lot of work, um, in translation. And I had, uh, translated some, well, quite a bit of work as an external, uh, translator for Bqn. And, um, I thought landed some pretty nice jobs that sort of got my name out there as a translator. Um, and I was recruited by, um, <inaudible> to work in their language department. So it's the largest law firm in Argentina. It's one of the largest law firms in Latin America. And it does a lot of international, um, work. I mean, it's the, the firm that works with all the big clients that do business in Latin America. Um, and so they have their own language department. And, um, and I started working there, but I was only there for a little over a year because then I came to Georgetown. So it was a very brief experience.
Speaker 3 00:13:29 So when I first met you, you were working at Maal and I met you because I originally met your colleague and friend, uh, Nikki Amayo, who had posted an article about the most expensive in the world. Do you remember that?
Speaker 0 00:13:45 Yeah, I do. Um, so Nikki and I were trying to, Oh wait, wait. Little background. Nikki is a linguist. Uh, she has a degree in linguistics from the University of Bueno. And, um, when they paired us up the, I, I think one of the smartest things that the firm did was to pair up a linguist, um, or someone with a degree in linguistics and someone who came from a multilingual background but with a law degree. So we were trying to, uh, create content that would create a little more awareness about language and multilingualism. It was originally meant just for our lawyers in our firm. We wanted them to, um, be a little bit more aware of how they used language and we didn't want to bore them to death or, uh, to, to do that thing that sometimes we do, uh, from as teachers where we think this is interesting, but we don't really show you the real world implications of what we're trying to teach you.
Speaker 0 00:14:46 And so we thought, well, what do our lawyers care about? And our lawyers care a lot about money and saving money and, um, making sure that their clients can save money and not get sued for millions of dollars. And so we found this case where a comma had cost, I don't remember how many millions of dollars, um, for now. And so we thought, okay, let's do a linguistic analysis of this. Let's, let's look at this and see how this clause, um, should have been written differently. What's wrong with the grammar? What are other possible interpretations? And, um, what what we can teach our lawyers, um, in a way that's engaging and interesting. And that's how we publish that. And indirectly, you
Speaker 3 00:15:30 And can, can you say more about what the linguistics or what the language department at the law firm did? Cuz that sound I remember that struck me to realize that there was a language department at a large law firm. I I think that's why I reached out to you guys, cuz I was so interested in that idea.
Speaker 0 00:15:47 Yeah. Um, so my violin is not the only law firm that has its own language department. Um, Nikki and I know of at least two law firms, very big law firms that have the same thing. One of them is, um, I believe Udm. And if I'm not, uh, I always get the last name, the second last name wrong, Obi, I think it's Udm. And in Spain, which is one of the largest law firms in Spain, and there's another law firm here in the US that also has its own language department. Um, and what what the language department did for a really long time was to provide courses for the firm's attorneys, um, to also review all of the, um, client facing language that goes out in English. Um, and for at <inaudible> at least specifically, a big part of that was to review, um, some of the firm's publication.
Speaker 0 00:16:46 So a lot of the firms marketing materials and, and things that were just going to be going out to clients. Um, but that wasn't the only thing we did. So some partners at the firm are, were very careful about the way that they use language. Um, and they would have us review their translations to make sure that they're accurate. They would sometimes ask us, uh, to look at multilingual contracts with them and compare the different languages to make sure that all the different versions are saying the same things, that nothing got lost in translation, um, or added <laugh>, which happens a lot sometimes when you have, um, different translations. So it, it was, it varied. We were basically, um, the people that the partners at the firm could go to if they needed help with anything language related.
Speaker 3 00:17:36 And, and that's all, it seems to be a function of the fact that in, in dealing with international transactions and inter international legal issues, there is a need for things to be in English or to connect in some way with English. So there's, there's a, a need to monitor or pay attention or learn about these, these language issues.
Speaker 0 00:17:57 Yeah. Cause I mean, one of the biggest, uh, problems for multilingual firms is that when you're working with, um, non-native English speakers, even if their, their language skills are excellent, there are some language issues that are going to come up. So the lawyers at the firm that I was working with, I mean, they, they're all very good. They're very fluent, their English is excellent. But when it comes to legal language in particular, because you're working with two different legal systems, there, there are a lot of problems that relate to translational equivalents, which is that sometimes terms in one language, uh, seem like they might be saying the same thing as they're equivalent term in another language. But if you look a little deeper, they're not saying the exact same things or the legal implications or connotations can be different. Um, and so depending on the context that you're gonna be using those words in, sometimes the translation is okay, and sometimes it's not, even if you're using the same word and it's a word that everyone understands. Um, and so partners would come to us with questions about those really difficult words, um, and they would have to, um, tell us what they intended, uh, to convey. And we would have basically just help them find words that could convey their intention and not so much the dictionary translation, um, that you would find or, you know, whatever Google translate <laugh> tell to use, which wasn't always the best translation.
Speaker 3 00:19:35 And did you ever feel, um, was it something that can come kind of easily, like you, you hear the same questions over so you know that this is what they really need? Are these words or there ever situations where you feel like, Uhoh, I gotta get this right, or this could cost millions of dollars to a client
Speaker 0 00:19:50 <laugh>? Um, so I think when, when you're facing any kind of problem with translational equivalence, when we're looking at terms that don't fight, translate well, um, and when a partner calls up <laugh> language department and says, I need help with this, it's because there's a lot at stake. Um, otherwise they know that they can just use the dictionary definition. And it's always the field experts who know best when it's time to ask them one and to ask for help. Um, and so when they did come to us for help, it always felt like there was a lot at stake and it wasn't always in the terminology. It was really interesting, um, working there was also how they wanted to phrase their broader sentences and the different directions that they wanted, um, those sentences to be able to go. And, um, it wasn't all about just avoiding ambiguity, but also about trying to control possible interpretations of that language, which anyone who works in linguistics knows is really hard to do, right? Cause you can only control so much of the message. Um, a lot of how that message is gonna be received on the other part really doesn't depend on how you phrase it. Um, so that was, I think, the most challenging part, but also the funnest part.
Speaker 3 00:21:08 Oh, that's interesting that you say the funnest part because I also wanted to ask you what, what you like about, or what you've always liked about translation?
Speaker 0 00:21:16 Um, the challenge, right? It's like there are no right answers because you're working with language and language is not objective. Um, so it's like, like trying to land a rocket on the moon in a planet or in a world where there's no math <laugh>, there's no certain, but you still have to get the job and you still have to try to find the best way to do it. Um, so that's what it felt like. And, and that to me is the fun part.
Speaker 3 00:21:43 And what kind advice do you have for, for people who do or wanna do legal translation?
Speaker 0 00:21:51 Um, so I think the most important advice is to learn as much as you can about the law. Um, I, a lot of times when I talk to people who are interested in legal translation, they tell me very common question is, Do you have to necessarily be a lawyer? You have to go to law school. Um, and I don't think that you do necessarily, but you do need to be, um, very aware of how much there is at stake in everything that you're translating, and to do your best to learn as much as you can so that you can really understand, um, all the different implications of your word choices and how you're structuring your translations.
Speaker 3 00:22:32 So Paula, in addition to your, you're translating, you're also a professor of, of legal English and also a professor of translation, Is that right?
Speaker 0 00:22:42 Um, so I am professor of legal English and I do teach translation courses. Um, but all the translation courses that I've taught are for translation organizations like the American Translators um, Association, or the National Association of Translators and Interpreters. So those courses haven't been in university settings. Um, it's just, I guess a little bit different. It's a little less academic and more focused on, um, skills on, on I guess skills training for professional translators.
Speaker 3 00:23:19 So in teaching legal English versus teaching translation, in what ways is teaching similar? And in what ways is it very different do you find?
Speaker 0 00:23:30 Um, well, one of the similarities is that you're working with people who already know language and who are already motivated, um, or have reasons to wanna learn about legal language in particular. So when you're teaching legal English, you're working either with lawyers, like here in Georgetown, we're working with LLMs in Argentina is different because law is an undergrad, um, course in Argentina. So it's, I mean, you're, you're just working with undergrad students and they're usually in their last year of law school. They don't have that much experience yet. You're not working with professionals, um, just yet. Um, but they're close, right? They're, they're, they're coming really close to, to being professionals. And so they are highly motivated and by the time they get to that course, their English is already pretty good. And it's the same when you're working with translators. The difference is their perspective.
Speaker 0 00:24:27 Translators are already very aware of, uh, translational equivalence issues and the fact that legal systems don't always translate well and that literal translations don't work. Um, they already sort of know the basics. They know the problems and what they're looking for are techniques for solving those problems. And what you do when you're facing the term that just isn't translatable across legal systems. Whereas with lawyers or future lawyers, there's a little more awareness building, so they will naturally try to still translate things literally, especially when they find terms that, um, that have any kind of Latin root, they'll think that those terms just translate well. Um, and so a a big part of your teaching is teaching them not to do that. And, um, how to find better words for communicating.
Speaker 3 00:25:25 Um, I know, I know from, from personal experience that there are some, some good, uh, false cognates in between Spanish and English. The most famous one being, which in Spanish, which in English sounds like embarrassed, but in Spanish means pregnant. Um, and and my mother once used that when she lived in Guatemala and she told a room full of people that she was very embarrassed and they laughed very hard at her. Um, so are, are there any sort of common false cognates that you come across in legal translation, like you were mentioning with Latin roots, for example?
Speaker 0 00:26:02 Um, yeah, pretty much anything that has a, um, French, anything that made it into English law through French, uh, through that whole period where English court spoke French, um, is probably gonna be a false cognate with everything in every other romance language, like the Spanish ante and English is a moving party, but if you're a Spanish speaker, you would wanna say soliciting party. And that's not really a thing in procedural context.
Speaker 3 00:26:37 Ah, so solicit is a word that sort of came into English through French and has a legal English meaning, but doesn't translate the same way from Spanish to English. Right. Also, with, with regard to your teaching, how much is grammar an issue, uh, both in, in teaching translation versus teaching legal English?
Speaker 0 00:26:57 That's a good question. Um,
Speaker 3 00:26:59 Do the students, do the students generally have good knowledge of grammar that you work with both in translation and or legal English?
Speaker 0 00:27:08 Um, so it's different between translators and lawyers. When we are working with translators, they usually are very good at grammar. The issue there though is, um, when they don't feel confident enough in their knowledge of the law, they will use a technique, um, a translation technique that, uh, is too close to the source text. And so the grammar will sometimes reflect the source language grammar, and it'll sound a little bit off in the target language. So you end up with sentences that sound translated. And as a reader, if you're, for example, if the translations into English and it's from French, you'll find these sort of long, clunky sentences with a bunch of, um, subordinated clauses inside. And you're thinking, Well, where is this coming from? Or Why is this so weird? And it's so weird because usually the, what the translator did there was just stick to the French grammar and reflect it almost word for word.
Speaker 0 00:28:09 Um, and that will happen only when they don't completely understand the source text, which is one of the hardest things to do when you're not a lawyer, is to really understand what message they're trying to convey and to be able to read the text beyond its grammar or, or beyond the vices of its grammar. Cause a lot of times lawyers have certain linguistic vices that they repeat over and over again in, in their respective languages. Um, with lawyers, that's differently, uh, that's a little different. Their knowledge of grammar isn't as strong as, um, that of professional translators. So they do have, and they know grammar, right? Because they've been studying English for a really long time, um, and they're fluent in English, and they've been taught, you know, the, I don't know how to use passive voice or when to use the present. Perfect. Um, but when they put it into practice, they don't always think about the implications of the language that they're using or the way that they're using their grammar.
Speaker 0 00:29:09 So one connection that sometimes, um, lawyers don't necessarily make is the connection between mono auxiliary verbs, like, um, should or will or must or may, and what that conveys legally speaking, how that could be interpreted. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> in terms of, are you saying there's a probability or a possibility or an obligation, or are we talking about duties or, or even the way they use she, um, you've probably seen that with your students too, where it's not always clear if we're using future shell or obligation shell. So the issues that you find with lawyers are a little bit different.
Speaker 3 00:29:47 That, that reminds me of, of working with students from Japan somehow in the textbooks somewhere way back, they learn to say instead of you, should they use you head better, cool <laugh>. And, and that, and it is, it does have the same meaning, but when you say things like, you had better eat breakfast, now, it kind of sounds like a threat from a mafia boss. And so that I, if I could go back, if I could change one grammar teaching in Japan, it would be to teach everybody to not use you head better anymore. But anyway, so yes, but auxiliary verbs can be very tricky, especially when you get into legal English. Um, what about, uh, commas? I, I know, or I think I know that in Spanish writing it's much more common to use commas than in English. Writing in that commas are used in ways that we don't necessarily use them in English writing. Is that, does that sound accurate to you?
Speaker 0 00:30:52 Um, so that's true. I think of almost all punctuation. We, languages don't usually punctuate the same way, and punctuation doesn't mean the same things. Um, so in English, people might use commas where they would make a natural pause for emphasis, for example. And that wouldn't happen necessarily with a Spanish speaker because we speak at a rate of 180, uh, words for me. Oh, is that true? We don't pause.
Speaker 3 00:31:19 It's, it's not just that it sounds faster, it really is faster.
Speaker 0 00:31:23 Oh no, it is faster. I mean, I have
Speaker 3 00:31:25 No idea.
Speaker 0 00:31:26 Oh, yeah, it's, it's really interesting. I, I read somewhere that, um, uh, the average American English speaker speaks at a rate of about 120 words, um, per minute. And Spanish speakers speak at 180. So we don't, we don't pause for emphasis when we're speaking Spanish, and we don't use commas to, you know, we don't use comma strategically in that way either.
Speaker 3 00:31:51 I feel like my 12 year old daughter probably speaks at about 180 words per minute. <laugh>, maybe she would do well in Spanish. Um, so, so are there example, How do, how do you help Spanish speaking lawyers with punctuation issues?
Speaker 0 00:32:08 Um, well, the most important thing with Spanish speaking lawyers is to, uh, teach them to write shorter sentences. So for, for Spanish speakers, the problem isn't so much how you use your commas. There's some, some errors that come up all the time, like using your commas before a verb. That's common in pretty much every romance language. And it's also common for English speakers to make that mistake, right? To just say, um, this comma is, uh, a beautiful day. You, you see that a lot. But it's an, that's an easy thing to work with and to fix. With Spanish speakers, the challenge is that a Spanish speaker can write a sentence that consists of maybe 500 words if you let them. Um, and the same happens with French and Italian speakers. It's just the way that we're used to writing, uh, romance languages. So you have to, um, teach people to write shorter sentences first and to get their ideas across in sort of smaller chunks that are easier to understand.
Speaker 3 00:33:12 So, So if a Spanish writer has two independent clauses, will they connect them with a comma or nothing? Or they'll just connect them with no punctuation at all? Or, or with a, with a, a conjunction.
Speaker 0 00:33:24 Um, they will most likely try to connect it with a comma or a series of commas.
Speaker 3 00:33:31 So rather than a period where we would make it a separate sentence, they'll just, So it could just be a matter of changing all the commas to periods? Or is, or does it tend to be a little more involved than that?
Speaker 0 00:33:41 No, it, it's more complicated than that because Spanish has, um, it has something that's called a passive subject, which means that we can, Spanish sentences can have subjects without anyone saying what the subject is, whereas English doesn't have that. Every sentence in English has a subject and a predicate and subject is always gonna tell you, um, the who, right, whoever it is that this applies to in that sentence. Um, so for Spanish, because we have, um, we can make sentences with no subjects, and we can make very long clauses with no subjects, we will be these sort of longer sentences with all these complicated commas, um, will also lack subjects. They will not be complete sentences if you replace those coms with periods. So you also have to teach Spanish speakers to be aware of how they use subjects before their verbs and who the subject is of a sentence. So we get a lot of, um, subject verb ambiguity in Spanish that you don't necessarily see so much English.
Speaker 3 00:34:48 And even, even in contracts in Spanish, there might be subject verb ambiguity, or do they
Speaker 0 00:34:53 Yes. Yeah, we will forget to tell you who <laugh>, um, because we assume that you can get it because Spanish has a Spanish, I mean, the, the thing is that grammatically it is possible for Spanish speakers to decode that because we're used to having no subject in sentences. So sometimes it's a mistake, but most of the time it can be inferred. Um, so the challenge for Spanish speakers is to be able to tell when it really can't be inferred when we're just assuming that it can be inferred because we're used to speaking that way, and we need to make more of an effort to be clear about who is going to be doing what. And in legal language, that's particularly important because who has the, an obligation, who has a duty to do something is, is relevant. Um, and that's the part that we will sometimes just let people, let our readers figure out. And that's where we can come into problems and Spanish drafting.
Speaker 3 00:35:46 And if I'm a, an English speaking lawyer in America, and I wanna get out of a contract with a, uh, Spanish speaking company, I'm gonna look for those ambiguities as ways to get out of it. So, so I guess that is important, and you have to, as a, as a translator, you really need to help your clients get that so they're protected,
Speaker 0 00:36:05 Right? Yeah, I mean, these are all legal arguments that you can make and they're strong and very solid. Just say, Well, and, and even with translations, we've seen a lot of translations end up in court where that was actually the problem. The problem was the ambiguity in the translation, especially when the translation is rendered almost word for word, and it's coming from a romance language into English, so the subject is lost, Um, or, or it's, it's just so, so, so hard to figure out who it is and there, or there's more than one possible subject.
Speaker 3 00:36:40 Um, what about lawyers and emails? A lot of, a lot of, um, non-native English speaking lawyers and law students really wanna improve their ability to, to write emails. Is that something that, that comes up in your work as a legal translator?
Speaker 0 00:36:57 Um, well, it never, it didn't come up in my work as a legal translator, but it was an issue, um, at the firm. So it's, I mean, normally people, especially multilingual lawyers, they're, they're fluent enough where they won't need a translator for their emails, They'll do it themselves. Um, but you do see a lot of time that is wasted, um, when emails are too long, for example, which is something that happens a lot when it wasn't originally written in English. Um, uh, Spanish speakers will tend to write very long emails, and a lot of information gets lost in that exchange. Um, or the order that that, that information is put in, it tends to get lost. And there's also, I think one of the biggest, for me, it was one of the biggest problems was we, um, are sometimes a little culturally unaware when we're translating emails. And this goes both ways. English speakers will go to the point very quickly, and that can read as impolite, um, or aggressive in other cultures. Um, whereas other cultures tend to be excessively polite in their emails. And so that, um, makes English speakers not wanna read the whole thing and just wish that you would get to the point. Um, so I think the, the, the, the, uh, challenge there is to find the right balance, um, between the different cultures that you're working with.
Speaker 3 00:38:24 Sounds like a, a book that could be written on, on finding the right balance. Somebody, maybe somebody's already written this book, um,
Speaker 0 00:38:32 I'm sure someone has,
Speaker 3 00:38:33 Yeah, has found the equilibrium point between in American style emails and Spanish style emails. I think I've heard that with regard to, to French, uh, speakers as well, that about how Americans really like to get to the point, to the point of rudeness. And, uh, um, and, and one last question about grammar. Do you consider yourself a grammar productivist or a grammar desist?
Speaker 0 00:38:59 Oh, I like that question. Um, I am very much a desist. I don't think that I view language in general as sort of a living entity. And you can't, you can't force a living being to do anything. I mean, not reasonably <laugh>, you can try, but, but your efforts will not be reasonable and they will not be nice. Um, and I think the beauty of language is that language evolves with people, right? So the way that we talk, the words that we choose, um, and the way we go about communicating is very much a reflection of where we are as humans, where we are as a society, and what values we have. Um, so I, I like seeing language in that way. So, and, and, and just seeing where it goes and where it evolves. And there's also, I think, um, a second, but equally important issue when it comes to language prescriptive, is that prescriptive efforts, especially in non-prescriptive languages like English, it's a little different with Spanish, which is, which is which conceives of itself as aist language.
Speaker 0 00:40:07 Um, the other thing is language and, and how much prescription language has speaks to how we treat, um, members of our society who are less privileged and who have had fewer opportunities to learn all these linguistic prescriptions and reflect them in the way that they speak. So when you tell a person the way that you speak is wrong, the way that you pronounce things or the way that you use your grammar is wrong. A lot of times what you're telling that person is, um, your socioeconomic status is wrong or your race is wrong. Um, and I think that that just goes against what language is to humans. Um, language should be the free expression of, of just us as a species, and it should evolve with us, and we should be evolving in better directions than just going around telling people everything about them. Um, especially things they can't control are wrong.
Speaker 3 00:41:08 Yeah, a lot of, of grammar, a lot of what we learned about grammar growing up in English at least is, is um, is classism. I guess it's a way of, Yeah, it's a sorting hat. It's a way of separating, you know, the one group from another, the, the Dr. S's star de niches, if you will, <laugh>, Right. Getting, I'm getting a little obscure in my references now. Um, so my, my next question, um, as as we get towards the end of this interview is, uh, I know that you are working on your PhD in law and you're working on a dissertation right now. Can you just tell us a little bit about it?
Speaker 0 00:41:47 Um, sure. So my dissertation is divided into two different areas. Um, one part is more analytical where I'm trying to figure out the, the role that language plays in the law. Um, throughout history, there have been different debates about what role, uh, language plays, everything from reducing law, um, to language and just arguing that there's no such thing as law beyond language to more practical approaches of, uh, the relationship between law and language. Uh, so in, in that sort of, um, analysis of, of how we viewed the law and what then, and this relationship and the practical implications of that, um, what I'm finding is that there's a lot of very interesting work to do and a lot more that we need to be doing in analyzing law as a discussive multilingual collective practice. Um, and, and just viewing how the language of the law is constructed by all lawyers and not just judges, which is sort of a more historical way of looking at how we construct legal language, um, and more democratic constructions of legal language that include, um, the people who are going to be affected by the law as well.
Speaker 0 00:43:13 So I'm looking at, um, legal discourse sort of through the eyes of multilingualism in our collective, um, sort of construction. And, um, and from a more practical point of view, specifically, I want to see what that looks like in legal practice and what happens when multilingual lawyers start practicing law, what they do with that language, how they used that language, were they properly trained in, um, using that language? And what other kind of education do we need to be offering multilingual lawyers, um, when, so that when they are part of that practice and they're adding to that language, um, we can do so in a way that, um, brings the law closer to the people and not further away from it, which is what we see, and especially now, um, in, in many legal settings.
Speaker 3 00:44:09 And does this involve, um, interviewing multilingual lawyers or just are talking with multilingual lawyers, or does this involve reviewing documents that they've written or, or listening to recordings of the way they speak?
Speaker 0 00:44:25 So, um, for a part of my dissertation, I'm actually looking at documents and I'm looking at documents that are supposed to be, um, just facing the general population, client facing, um, and trying to figure out if people can really understand that language that we're using and whether they can make informed decisions based on the language that we as lawyers are producing and, and showing them. Um, but it also involves interviewing lawyers about their perception of how we use language and law students about their perception of how they're trained and what they think are going to be their language means and their struggles, and how law school can do better at, um, helping them, um, to be better communicators of the law.
Speaker 3 00:45:18 I am really looking forward to this dissertation, and I, and I, I think we're gonna have to do a, a follow up interview at some point when you, when you finish this <laugh>. Um, so thank you, thank you for explaining all of that. Um, well, Paula, thank you so much for taking the time to join me today. Uh, we'll include any relevant links from this episode in the show notes. Uh, I wanna remind our listeners to subscribe to the US Law Essentials Podcast on Apple, Stitcher, Spotify, Himalaya, or wherever you get your podcasts. And you can also listen to all our episodes on US law essentials.com. Um, if you have any questions, comments, reactions, ideas, et cetera, we always love hearing from our listeners. You can contact us by email at daniel us law essentials.com or through the US Law Essentials Facebook group or LinkedIn Group.
Speaker 3 00:46:10 Um, and I'm gonna end with a, with a, a law related joke, um, which you may or may not have heard before. So, uh, if you have heard it, don't stop me. Just let me keep going. Okay. Um, okay. So there's a, um, two guys are in a, a hot air balloon and they're, they're drifting over the countryside and they've kind of lost track of where they are. And, um, they lower down to see if they can see anybody, and eventually they see this guy and they lower down and they call down to him and they say, Excuse me, can you tell us where we are? And he looks up at them and he says, You are 10 miles from the nearest town. And he goes, and he walks away and, uh, two guys look at each other. And, and one of the guys says, You know, I think that must have been a lawyer. And the other guy says, How do you know? And he goes, Well, the information he gave us is completely accurate, yet completely unhelpful.
Speaker 0 00:47:10 Something a lawyer would say, <laugh>.
Speaker 3 00:47:13 And that's something I, I share that joke with some of my, with my students each, usually each semester in one class or another, just because the idea of, of being a lawyer is you, you have access to all of this technical knowledge, but it's also about how you communicated, which is something that you, you've probably dealt very much with as a legal translator. So, absolutely. Anyway, thank you so much, Paula. Um, uh, and thanks to all of our listeners for listening to the US Law Essentials Law and Language Podcast, and to Pablo and our other listeners, stay essential.
