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The formulation of legal norms is greatly conditioned not only by different juridical systems and drafting traditions, but also by specific linguistic features and socio-cultural aspects. The paper investigates this issue by taking into consideration provisions concerning commercial arbitration in an Asian country. The text selected for our analysis is The People's Republic of China Arbitration Law 1994 (PRCAL, for short). This law can be considered a highly important step in the development of Chinese legislation in this field as it has had a great impact on international arbitration carried out by Chinese companies. International business exchanges with China have increased enormously over the last few years and even the recent economic recession has not slowed down this growth, making China the biggest Asian market in terms of import-export trade. As a natural consequence, this increase in business deals and contracts has brought about a rise in the number of trade disputes, with a consequent increase in arbitration proceedings. The aim of this paper is to examine the English version of PRCAL in order to highlight some of the linguistic and legal features present that betray specific cultural values. In some cases, the PRCAL text is compared to the United Nations Model Law on International Commercial Arbitration, with the aim of offering a more detailed understanding of textual phenomena closely linked to differing legal and cultural traditions.

Quel est l'impact de la « transversalité » culturelle sur les projets, les services et les collectivités ? Elle semble être porteuse, notamment en ce qui concerne les savoir-faire et compétences d'une équipe mais apparaît également comme problématique pour certains dossiers. Cette interrogation se rapproche notamment des questionnements liés à l'évaluation des politiques culturelles et à la valorisation territoriale.

Quel est l'impact de la « transversalité » culturelle sur les projets, les services et les collectivités ? Elle semble être porteuse, notamment en ce qui concerne les savoir-faire et compétences d'une équipe mais apparaît également comme problématique pour certains dossiers. Cette interrogation se rapproche notamment des questionnements liés à l'évaluation des politiques culturelles et à la valorisation territoriale.

The formulation of legal norms is greatly conditioned not only by different juridical systems and drafting traditions, but also by specific linguistic features and socio-cultural aspects. The paper investigates this issue by taking into consideration provisions concerning commercial arbitration in an Asian country. The text selected for our analysis is The People's Republic of China Arbitration Law 1994 (PRCAL, for short). This law can be considered a highly important step in the development of Chinese legislation in this field as it has had a great impact on international arbitration carried out by Chinese companies. International business exchanges with China have increased enormously over the last few years and even the recent economic recession has not slowed down this growth, making China the biggest Asian market in terms of import-export trade. As a natural consequence, this increase in business deals and contracts has brought about a rise in the number of trade disputes, with a consequent increase in arbitration proceedings. The aim of this paper is to examine the English version of PRCAL in order to highlight some of the linguistic and legal features present that betray specific cultural values. In some cases, the PRCAL text is compared to the United Nations Model Law on International Commercial Arbitration, with the aim of offering a more detailed understanding of textual phenomena closely linked to differing legal and cultural traditions.

En estas últimas décadas, la tendencia a la globalización ha afectado el campo jurídico, el cual ha experimentado, del mismo modo, una perspectiva cada vez más orientada a la internacionalización. Sin embargo, a pesar de los crecientes esfuerzos de la comunidad internacional por garantizar cada vez mayores acuerdos en la legislación y los procedimientos, las restricciones locales y los aspectos culturales específicos aún representan un factor condicionante relevante. Esto es claramente visible en los textos normativos en uso en los diversos contextos que muestran discrepancias, las que derivan no solo de sistemas culturales y jurídicos diferenciados, sino también del uso de diferentes códigos lingüísticos. Para ejemplificar estos temas, el artículo toma en cuenta algunos cambios relevantes que están teniendo lugar en un tipo específico de discurso jurídico −aquel que dice relación con el dominio del arbitraje− tal como se usa en contextos multilingües y multiculturales, a fin de ilustrar los fenómenos relacionados con la tendencia a la globalización en este dominio y con la mantención de identidades lingüísticas y culturales reafirmadas a nivel local. Para ilustrar los diferentes fenómenos, se toman ejemplos de la legislación sobre arbitraje internacional basada en la Ley Modelo sobre Arbitraje Comercial Internacional emitida por las Naciones Unidas y posteriormente integrada en las leyes de varios países con diversas condiciones constitucionales, socioculturales y económicas. In the last few decades a globalising trend has affected the legal field, where an international perspective is becoming more and more widespread. However, in spite of the growing efforts of the international community to guarantee greater and greater harmonisation in legislation and procedures, local constraints and specific cultural aspects still represent a relevant conditioning factor. This is clearly visible in the normative texts in use in the various contexts which show discrepancies deriving not only from differing legal and cultural systems, but also from the use of different linguistic codes. To exemplify these issues, the paper takes into consideration some relevant changes taking place in a specific type of legal discourse -i.e. that concerning the field of arbitration- as used in multilingual and multicultural contexts, in order to illustrate phenomena related to the globalising trends taking place in this field and to the maintenance of linguistic and cultural identities reaffirmed at a local level. To illustrate the various phenomena, examples are drawn from legislation on international arbitration based on the Model Law on International Commercial Arbitration issued by the United Nations and later integrated into the laws of several countries with varying constitutional, sociocultural and economic conditions.