Ett tidigt försök att etablera en svensk juridisk vokabulär? Lexikaliska och fackspråkliga perspektiv på en juridisk handbok från 1674

Authors

• Lena Rogström Göteborgs universitet
• Hans Landqvist Göteborgs universitet

DOI: https://doi.org/10.70484/vakki.149180

Keywords:

Clas Rålamb, etablering, fackspråklighet, juridiska handböcker, lexikalisering

Abstract

In this paper we investigate if growth and consolidation of legal vocabulary can be discerned in a Swedish legal handbook from 1674. The survey focuses on 55 lexical units in Latin and Swedish from four central semantic areas of the legal process: the ACTIONS, the ACTORS, the ARENAS and the TOOLS. The investigation is carried out with material from the first legal handbook in Swedish: Observationes […] (1674), by Clas Rålamb together with four Swedish dictionaries published between 1773 and 2009. We analyse to what extent the lexical units were lexicalized at that time and if they perhaps could be considered to be juridical terms of Swedish (Germanic) or Latin origin. The results show that Swedish and Latin lexical units co-vary with the different semantic areas. The area of TOOLS has the closest connection to Latin, whereas the other semantic areas to a higher extent are related to Swedish. There is also reason to believe that Swedish legal terminology started to gain structure long before the printing of the first legal handbook in Swedish.