Working towards a Discipline‐Specific Vocabulary Core (DSVC) for postgraduate International Law

Jenny Kemp     jenny.kemp@le.ac.uk

TALC 2018 @ University of Cambridge, July 19th 2018

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needs of PG Law (LLM) students

vocabulary

socio‐legal context

Northcott (2008, 2009); Deutch (2003) 

Northcott (2009) 

Carver (1994), Schoonen et al (1998), Nassaji 2003)

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Carr & Stone (2014, p.159)

VocabProfiler: http://www.lextutor.ca/vp/eng/Kemp TaLC 2018

All on Gardner and Davies’ (2014) New Academic Vocabulary List (AVL), but with a specific meaning in Law

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Research Questions1. What specialist lexis (single words, collocations, 

multi‐word units) do postgraduate International Law students need for reading?

2. What text coverage does this Discipline‐Specific Vocabulary Core (DSVC) provide?

3. When students begin their LLM course, do they know this DSVC?

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Corpus linguistics

English for Academic Purposes

Data Driven Learning (DDL)

Prof. Vijay BhatiaLegal English

forensic linguisticsOn the use of corpora in the analysis of forensic textsCoulthard, Malcolm. International Journal of Speech Language and the Law, 2/18/2013, Vol.1(1), pp.27‐43 

Legal translation

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The DSVC International Law Corpus

LLM reading texts

Corpus (c.2m words)

Discipline‐Specific Vocabulary Core

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written legal texts

Prescriptive

treaties

agreements

conventions

acts

directives

regulations

codes of practice

(contracts, wills)

Hybrid

Descriptive

textbooks

monographs

edited volumes

journal articles

practitioner texts

commission reports

web articles and summaries

case summaries

case digests

case comments

commentaries

(essays, dissertations, theses)

cases + appeals

panel reports

tribunal reports

court proceedings

advisory opinions

(statements, briefs, advice)

Communicative function

(My categories develop the work of: Bhatia, 1983; Šarčević, 1997; Williams, 2007; Gozdz‐Roszkowski 2013)Kemp TaLC 2018

function no. of texts

Prescriptive 66Hybrid 47Descriptive 288

401

date no. of texts

pre‐1980 261980‐1999 352000‐2019 340

401

tokens 1,950,302words 35, 806lemma+POS (lempos) 29,581

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The DSVC International Law Corpus

12 domains:1. Company Law

2. Intellectual Property &Internet Law

3. Civil & Commercial ADR

4. Sale & Carriage of Goods, Marine Insurance, & Shipping

5. World Trade and Investment

6. Banking & Finance

7. Conflict of Laws

8. EU Constitutional &Administrative Law 

9. EU Substantive Law

10. Public International Law

11. Armed Conflict &International Criminal Justice

12. International Human Rights Law

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Survey of modules in LLM programmes    in 21 UK universities (2014/5)

modules

universities

banking law human rights

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Reading lists:titles + topics and themes

5000-word samples

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expert judgments on corpus content

1. In your opinion, does the list reflect examples of the topics, themes and principles that tend to be covered in this domain?

2. Is there any item which seems out of place? (If so, which item and why?)

3. Is there a topic/theme/principle which you believe is widely taught, but which is not covered here?

4. Is there a particular text which you believe is usually required reading, but which is not covered here?

5. Do the proportions of the different genres correspond approximately to what you would expect an LLM student to read? 

16 experts

5 institutions

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The DSVC International Law Corpus

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Top 30 noun lemmas in the DSVC International Law (by raw freq)

1 law 11521

2 court 7975

3 article 7408

4 state 7341

5 right 5555

6 case 5359

7 party 5204

8 member 4728

9 company 3849

10 rule 3735

11 agreement 3548

12 states 3119

13 provision 2957

14 contract 2813

15 convention 2807

16 act 2728

17 treaty 2509

18 principle 2457

19 country 2340

20 system 2327

21 person 2310

22 jurisdiction 2248

23 time 2233

24 measure 2181

25 eu 2151

26 market 2143

27 decision 2119

28 order 2036

29 obligation 2036

30 part 2010Kemp TaLC 2018

1 bank 1,1842 financial 8303 market 5944 credit 4795 law 4756 system 3687 regulation 3628 service 3619 investment 35110 provide 34311 risk 33312 banking 33013 institution 32714 security 32615 firm 32516 consumer 30117 member 29918 rule 28519 act 27920 activity 278

Banking & Finance

Raw freq.

Pilot data (30 texts)range 8/30

Top content words

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provide

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This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY‐NC‐SA

In the light of

See discussion in Kemp 2018

Genre = cases

use by 

copying and use of

use of  works

registration and use of

the terms and conditions of the  use of  the work or other subject matter

in connection with any  use of electronic communications

must be use as  a trade mark

use of  a trade mark

the  use made  of the work

to make use of  electronic communications

where  use is made of

fair use

of  public non‐commercial use

against  unfair commercial use

legitimate use

for  private  use

where the  use is  authorised  by

unauthorised  use of

permitted to  use

the right to  use

intending to  use it

inhibit the  use of

the use of the word '

could use

Use, as a concept, is important in IP/Internet Law at PG level.

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1 D   the management and/or controlling shareholder , which is essentially the st

2 D   flow ownership by the controlling shareholder  mitigates this incentive for

3 D   in recent years, particularly as  shareholder  activism has developed and b

4 D   investors. More recent examples of  shareholder  activism include a revolt by

5 D   is not to suggest that  shareholder  activism is always a good 

6 D  rategic and operational matters require shareholder  approval, company election p

7 D   board (at least without formal  shareholder  approval)   from taking any 

8 D   to raise loan capital and  shareholder  approval is not normally req

9 D orward financing proposals that require shareholder  approval, they will know tha

10 D   which takes account of minority shareholder  interests and does not unfa

11 D   the company is to maximise shareholder  interests. The second answer

12 D   striking the right balance between  shareholder  primacy and stakeholder mana

13 D mpany, including the shareholders. The  shareholder  primacy and stakeholder theo

14 D  . Accordingly, Berle was not advocating  shareholder  primacy as we understand it 

15 D   for approval and where a  shareholder  proposal has been made pursu

16 D   have the right to submit  shareholder  proposals to a vote. If 

17 D  ublicising underperformance and filing  shareholder  proposals to bring about imp

18 D   company elections; nor usually can  shareholder  resolutions bind the board, 

19 D   can be supplemented by certain  shareholder  resolutions or agreements. S

20 D   on the law relating to  shareholder  resolutions, proxies and cor

23 D those concerned with transparency and  shareholder  rights, also single out quot

24 D   a fight on the Draft  Shareholder  Rights Directive is going on

25 D   of US accounting standards and  shareholder  rights' protection; and the 

26 D considerations and because it enhances  shareholder  value. The argument seems to

27 D   business, that end is maximising shareholder  value, which depends on busi

28 D   with the obligation to maximize shareholder  value. During the same p

29 D   as a way of maximizing shareholder  returns? The basic problem i

30 D   with B as a minority shareholder,   a position which may prove

31 D   and thus becoming a minority shareholder  may be such a costly 

32 D   the behest of a minority shareholder.   b Practical impediments to

33 D existence of different and incompatible  shareholder  voting guidelines (5.8). 36 

34 D   holding periods for stock; increased  shareholder  voting influence in relation

35 D  . At the same time, though,  shareholder  voting probably only operate

shareholder

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Civil & Commercial ADR

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Keywords

Ref corpus: EnTenTen13

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• The vocabulary that is relevant for PG Law students crosses frequency boundaries;

• It also stretches across word boundaries;

• So a keyword list of single words is not enough.

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Discipline Specific Vocabulary Core (DSVC)

collocations

multiword units

single words(high frequency)

single words (specific)

proper nouns

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Multiword units

collocations

Salient items in each domain subcorpus

Salient items in each communicative function subcorpus

Salient items in the whole corpus

Single words

Single wordsProper nouns

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Methodologically sound

Pedagogically useful

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How can we use this in the classroom?

• Observe

• Highlight

• Extract

• Use 

1. corpus‐informed teaching

2. guided awareness‐raising activities

3. hands‐on learner training

Preshous & Kemp (2017)

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The following concordance lines are all taken from a small purpose‐built corpus of law reports from your reading lists. 

• Study the examples in A‐C and work out the meaning(s) of the central phrase. 

• Highlight useful patterns.

Remember that you

are looking for

patterns, so it must

occur at least twice

to be useful.

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• Observe

• Highlight

• Extract

• Use 

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guided & freer practice 

• Observe• Highlight• Extract• Use

Gapfil examples from BAWE and byu‐bncKemp TaLC 2018

"very useful for our future studies"/ “AntConc and the 

knowledge [of corpora] was and is really useful"

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ReferencesBhatia, V., 1983. An Applied Discourse Analysis of English Legislative Writing, Birmingham: University of Aston.Gozdz-Roszkowski, S., 2013. Exploring near-synonymous terms in legal language. A corpus-based, phraseological perspective. Linguistica Antverpiensia, New Series –Themes in Translation Studies, 0(12).Hyland, K. and Tse, P. 2007. Is there an "academic vocabulary"? TESOL Quarterly, 41(2), 235-253.Kemp, J. Forthcoming, 2018. ‘A rosy-fingered dawn for legal education? Insights from a corpus linguistic perspective on text’. Nottingham Law Journal, 27(2). Marín, M.J. and Rea, C. 2011. Design and compilation of a legal English corpus based on UK law reports: the process of making decisions. In Carrió Pastor and M. L. y Candel Mora, M. A. Las tecnologías de la información y las comunicaciones: Presente y futuro en el análisis de córpora. Actas del III Congreso Internacional de Lingüística de Corpus. Valencia: Universitat Politècnica de València, 101-110. Northcott, J. 2009. Teaching legal English: contexts and cases. In: D. Belcher, ed. English for Specific Purposes in Theory and Practice. Ann Arbor: University of Michegan Press, 165-185.Preshous, A. and Kemp, J. 2017. Exploiting corpora to address the discipline-specific vocabulary needs of students. In J. Kemp (Ed.) EAP in a Rapidly Changing Landscape: issues, challenges and solutions. Proceedings of the 2015 BALEAP Conference. Reading: Garnet, 205-216.Šarčević, S., 1997. New Approach to Legal Translation. The Hague: Kluwer Law International.Williams, C. 2007. Tradition and Change in Legal English: Verbal constructions in prescriptive texts. 2nd edn. Bern: Peter Lang.

jenny.kemp@le.ac.uk

Images: Word clouds: http://www.wordle.net/create and https://www.wordclouds.com/ Other images the authors own or  licensed by Creative Commons unless otherwise indicated. 

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