Saying death - legal and bioethical end-of-life terminology in German, French and Brazilian Portuguese

In the present research, we propose to carry out an analysis, guided mainly by the theoretical achievements of jurilinguistics, the communicative theory of terminology and the the theory of specialized languages on legal and bioethical terms belonging to the end-of-life field. These terms will be collected in corpora in German (de-DE), French (fr-FR) and Brazilian Portuguese (pt-BR), consisting of specialized texts (laws, case law from superior courts of justice, doctrine), as well as texts intended for general typology aimed at the general public (brochures, information texts...) published by governmental and non-governmental bodies on the subject. After terminological processing of these corpora (Sketch Engine software), the terms will undergo selection, with a view to building up a collection of terms, organized in the form of, on the one hand, a transversal glossary and, on the other, a database for legal entries, both trilingual.

Faced with scientific and medical advances, particularly those enabling life extension, and their relationship with the legal and bioethical limits of human life, jurists and journalists, doctors and philosophers, but also ordinary citizens often find themselves confronted with a new need. The need to be able to talk about death - and sometimes, one's own death - in the most appropriate and legally incontestable way possible. Terminology plays an essential role in the quest for a response to this need on the part of many segments of society.

Starting from the premise that terminology databases today constitute a privileged resource for the dissemination of knowledge and terminology in a field, as well as for the exchange of these at a potentially global level, this research aims to contribute to advancing the legal and bioethical debate in general, and particularly in Brazil, with the proposal of multilingual data resources for use primarily by translators, but also by legal operators, bioethicists or any citizen wishing to delve deeper into a subject that is becoming increasingly topical in the face of biomedical developments.

Thesis defended in January 2024, under the supervision of Thierry GRASS.

Link to theses.fr: https://www.theses.fr/s268998