Latvian specialised printed lexicographic resources of legal terms: historical, terminological, and user-friendliness perspectives

Abstract

Though the first LSP texts of ten and more pages were produced – in the form of German–Latvian translations – in the 18th century, but the first major legal translations appeared in the early 19th century, the initial terminological endeavours and thus first collections of (potential) legal terms refer to the second half of the 19th century. The first Latvian specialized lexicographic resources of legal terms were produced in early 20^th century. The aim of this article is to provide, from an analytic perspective, a historical overview of Latvian specialised printed lexicographic resources of legal terms, paying special attention to the aspects of consistency and quality in terms of their terminological and lexicographic features and correspondence to the needs of potential users. To achieve the goal of this study, the paper provides, by applying the methods of qualitative research, a comparative and contrastive analytical insight into the macrostructural and microstructural features of the main Latvian specialised printed dictionaries of legal terms – the lexicographic publications selected for this paper comprise eighteen bilingual or multilingual dictionaries and glossaries of legal terms. The quality of these terminological resources with regard to their lexicographic features and needs of potential users is in most cases compromised by macro- and microstructural inconsistencies and other shortcomings. Another important issue is the limited amount of terms – most of the editions may be regarded as small-sized compilations of legal terms.