FOOD METAPHOR IN LEGAL TERMINOLOGY: CHALLENGES FOR PERCEPTION, SOLUTIONS FOR INTERPRETATION IN MULTILINGUAL PROFESSIONAL SETTINGS

The paper explores the domain of food-based metaphor use in legal terminology and issues related its correct rendering into another language. The correctness is considered in the paper in line with such cornerstone translation studies categories as equivalence and adequacy. However, the need to balance and adapt the legal information to another country legal culture, legislation and proceedings runs through the text like a red thread. The goal of the study comprises two interdependent objectives, namely to identify interdisciplinary grounds for food metaphor-based terminology interpretation in administrative legal settings and to specify possible protocols for such interpretation within multilingual communication in legal settings, as well. The materials for theoretical analysis covered academic papers. The data for empirical studies included the USA and UK administrative-legal sources, academic papers on legal cases, and samples of mass -media communication in the administrative-legal field, monolingual and bilingual dictionaries and encyclopaedias. The methodology exploited qualitative approach to data analysis, rested on ground theory and inductive method as no substantial theoretical data has been found on the topic under study so far. The empirical analysis incorporated legal analysis of the concepts and their interpretation, the cognitive-frames based comparative analysis of the concepts in different national legal cultures, the investigation of language structure, namely syntax, morphology, orthography, linguistic and extralinguistic contexts, etymology data. The investigation rested on case study techniques.