Contemporary Chinese law: a linguistic perspective

Translations and processes of innovation of legal language are a core aspect of the functional relationship between language and law in contemporary China. Especially the last few decades, marked by a great acceleration of the Chinese economic and legal reforms, have been times of huge changes in legal language trends and times of great challenges for Chinese law scholars and legal translators. In particular, in the last few years, a new critical aspect has been emerging, i.e. problems of uncertainties associated to the categories used in legal discourses, in connection with the intensifying circualtion of legal models in the Chinese legal environement. A process of re-conceptualization is highly needed in several fields of the Chinese legal system, also in order to render more efficient the translations of Chinese laws into Western legal languages, mainly into English. This essay is dedicated to these emergent critical aspects, which are capable of conditioning the future relation between language and law in China and the dialogue between Chinese and Western legal systems.