¿Un caso de polisemia en el discurso jurídico?

Abstract

The work discussed in this paper is situated in the framework proposed by Cabré (1998a, 1998b, 1999, among others), i.e., the Communicative Theory of Terminology (CTT) which intends to explain terms “as singular units and, at the same time, similar to other communication units, within a global scheme of representation of reality.” The general purpose of this paper is to give empirical evidence of the thesis proposed by Cabré (1998, 1999, etc.), Temmerman (1997), Condamines and Rebeyrolle (1997) who discuss the univocality and monosemy of terminological units. In addition, the purpose is to show that even in texts aiming a high degree of precision, with an established and conventional form, such as legal texts (van Dijk, 1978), terminological units may show a conceptual variation. In this paper, I will specifically analyze the behavior of two terms: distinction and discrimination in a set of legal texts.