Linguistics as a crossroad between law, politics, and conflict

This collection is dedicated to the role of language as an instrument of expression in the sphere of law (in its various aspects) and politics, including political journalism, also at places touching history, religion, the problems of minorities and their integration in society. It is made up of 17 articles, written in German, English and Russian, dealing with the legal discourse, political language, problems in translating and interpreting, and linguistics and conflict.The articles were presented at an international scholarly conference held in February 2017 at the Institute of Slavic Studies at Dresden University of Technology. The conference was organized by Martin Henzelmann, and the goal was to focus on new linguistic challenges in law, history, politics, comparative studies, translation, interpretation, and managing of conflicts. An alumnus of the same university is the above-mentioned editor of the collection, Martin Henzelmann, a PhD holder in Slavonic philology and a Master in Romance studies, who currently works as a research assistant at the Institute of Slavic Studies at the University of Hamburg. The collection is addressed to linguists—especially Slavists and researchers of the history of language, legal language in Slavic speaking countries and interpreting. The authors of the articles highlight current trends and problems in diverse areas: the recent conflict in Ukraine, legal terminology in Slovenia, Poland, Russia, and in the EU, the history of the Macedonian Standard Language, Turkish as a Minority Language in Bulgarian education, etc. After the editorial, in which the book’s editor gives a short presentation of its conception, five thematic sections come, serving to group together the rest of the articles included in the collection: 1. Legal Discourse and Legal Language at Past and at Present; 2. Historical Aspects of Linguistics as a Mirror of Political and Social Tendencies; 3. Linguistics between Political Routine and Language Acquisition; 4. Problems in Translation and Interpreting; 5. Linguistic Conceptualization of Conflicts. The first of the sections mentioned starts with a paper by Alenka Kocbek from Koper, Slovenia, entitled “The Power of Legal Language—Legal Language as an Instrument of Power” (pp. 15–33) and is dedicated to the essence and the main features of legal [r ec en ze ] O PERA SVICA [XXX /020 /2 ]