Part of the Translyta reference: the linguistic foundation of our translation pipeline. New here? Start at the overview.
Category
Fixity
25 entries
Fixedness and units
What it means for wording to be fixed, how far a fixed unit extends, and where a stretch of text sits on the cline from free combination to frozen formula.
Binomials and doublets
Coordinated word pairs fixed by usage, and when dropping half of one is an error.
Fixedness and the phraseological cline
Wordings run from freely composed to fully fixed, and where one sits is a finding.
Frames with variable slots
A fixed frame with an open slot, and why the frame is not retranslated each time.
Lexical bundles and recurrent sequences
Sequences a genre repeats, usually neither grammatically complete nor idiomatic.
Unithood and the extent of the unit
Where a fixed unit starts and stops, and why this reference settles that by extent.
Routines and formulae
Situation-bound formulae whose form, not their composition, is what a text requires: openings, closings, performatives and the wording of attestation.
Attestation and certification formulae
Certification wordings, and why regime rather than language decides what they must say.
Judicial and procedural formulae
Fixed wordings of courts and procedure, where the target court’s own formula is a trap.
Opening and closing formulae in correspondence
Letter openings and closings, graded by rank, that map one-to-many between languages.
Performative and enacting formulae
Wordings that perform the legal act they name, and why they are placed, not composed.
Routine formulae
Everyday formulas the situation selects, and why composing them afresh sounds foreign.
Clauses and documentary patterns
Recurring clauses and drafting patterns of legislative and documentary texts, from definitions and recitals to boilerplate and citation.
Citation formulae
The wording that introduces an instrument, and why it does not carry between systems.
Complex prepositions and institutional connectors
Multi-word connectors that carry legal text, attested by counts rather than prescribed.
Definitional formulae
The wording of a definitions article, and why varying it inside one article is an error.
Headings, rubrics and form labels
Fixed labels on acts and forms, and when a form displaces a translation.
Preamble and recital formulae
The fixed openers of a preamble, and why the sequence itself carries information.
Reference and amendment formulae
The wordings that point at a provision and change it, and where they stop matching.
Standard clauses and boilerplate
Model clauses whose target wording is the instrument rather than a translation of one.
Text-organizing patterns
The wording a genre expects at each step: moves, signposts, connectives and the running phraseology that holds a text together.
Connectives and discourse relations
Words marking how two parts of a text relate, and which direction adds them.
Metadiscourse and signposting
The layer that tells a reader how to take the text, and what thins in translation.
Modality formulae in binding text
How obligation is worded in binding text, and why English offers two rival traditions.
Moves and rhetorical structure
The ordered stages a genre runs through, and what a translator may not rearrange.
Evidence and authority
How fixedness is established and by whom: corpus evidence, model texts, drafting manuals, and the ways apparent fixity misleads.
Drafting manuals and style guides
Guidance that fixes wording inside one house, and how far that reach goes.
False fixity
A string that recurs is not thereby fixed, and recurrence attests less than it seems.
Frequency and attestation as evidence
What counts as proof that a wording is fixed, and what that proof does not cover.
Model texts and precedent
Where a fixed target wording is found when no instrument supplies it.