<p>The Member States of the Southern African Customs Union (SACU) have set as their objectives, amongst others, the facilitation of cross-border movement of goods between the territories of the Member States and the promotion of the integration of Member States into the global economy through enhanced trade and investment. Different approaches to the recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments by Member States and the risk of non-enforcement may lead to legal uncertainty and increased transaction cost for prospective traders, which ultimately act as non-tariff barriers to trade in the region. Trade is critical to Southern Africa, and the ideal is that barriers to trade, of which uncertainty concerning the recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments among Member States is one, should be removed. Certainty, predictability, security of transactions, effective remedies and cost are important considerations in investment decision-making / and clear rules for allocating international jurisdiction and providing definite and expedited means of enforcing foreign judgments will facilitate intraregional as well as interregional trade. In addition to trade facilitation, a harmonised recognition and enforcement regime will consolidate economic and political integration in the SACU. An effective scheme for the mutual recognition and enforcement of civil judgments has been regarded as a feature of any economic integration initiative likely to achieve significant integration. While the harmonisation of the rules on the recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments has been given priority in other regional economic communities, in particularly the European Union, any similar effort to harmonise the rules on recognition and enforcement of Member States have been conspicuously absent in the SACU &ndash / a situation which needs to receive immediate attention. The thesis considers the approaches followed by the European Union with the Brussels Regime, the federal system of the United States of America under the &lsquo / full faith and credit clause&rsquo / the inter-state recognition scheme under the Australia and New Zealand Trans-Tasman judicial system / as well as the convention-approach of the Latin American States. It finds that the most suitable approach for the SACU is the negotiation and adoption by all SACU Member States of a multilateral convention on the recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments, comparable to the 1971 Convention of the Hague Conference on Private International Law / the EU Brussels I Regulation and the Latin-American Montevideo Convention, as complemented by the La Paz Convention. It is imperative that a proposed convention should not merely duplicate previous efforts, but should be drafted in the light of the legal, political and socio-economic characteristics of the SACU Member States. The current legislative provisions in force in SACU Member States are compared and analysed, and the comparison and analysis form the basis of a proposal for a future instrument on recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments for the region. A recommended draft text for a proposed Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Judgments for the SACU is included. This draft text could form the basis for future negotiations by SACU Member States.</p>

Multilingual terminological resources do not always include valid equivalents of legal terms for two main reasons. Firstly, legal systems can differ from one language community to another and even from one country to another because each has its own history and traditions. As a result, the non-isomorphism between legal and linguistic systems may render the identification of equivalents a particularly challenging task. Secondly, by focusing primarily on the definition of equivalence, a notion widely discussed in translation but not in terminology, the literature does not offer solid and systematic methodologies for assigning terminological equivalents. As a result, there is a lack of criteria to guide both terminologists and translators in the search and validation of equivalent terms. This problem is even more evident in the case of predicative units, such as verbs. Although some terminologists (L‘Homme 1998; Lerat 2002; Lorente 2007) have worked on specialized verbs, terminological equivalence between units that belong to this part of speech would benefit from a thorough study. By proposing a novel methodology to assign the equivalents of specialized verbs, this research aims at defining validation criteria for this kind of predicative units, so as to contribute to a better understanding of the phenomenon of terminological equivalence as well as to the development of multilingual terminography in general, and to the development of legal terminography, in particular. The study uses a Portuguese-English comparable corpus that consists of a single genre of texts, i.e. Supreme Court judgments, from which 100 Portuguese and 100 English specialized verbs were selected. The description of the verbs is based on the theory of Frame Semantics (Fillmore 1976, 1977, 1982, 1985; Fillmore and Atkins 1992), on the FrameNet methodology (Ruppenhofer et al. 2010), as well as on the methodology for compiling specialized lexical resources, such as DiCoInfo (L‘Homme 2008), developed in the Observatoire de linguistique Sens-Texte at the Université de Montréal. The research reviews contributions that have adopted the same theoretical and methodological framework to the compilation of lexical resources and proposes adaptations to the specific objectives of the project. In contrast to the top-down approach adopted by FrameNet lexicographers, the approach described here is bottom-up, i.e. verbs are first analyzed and then grouped into frames for each language separately. Specialized verbs are said to evoke a semantic frame, a sort of conceptual scenario in which a number of mandatory elements (core Frame Elements) play specific roles (e.g. ARGUER, JUDGE, LAW), but specialized verbs are often accompanied by other optional information (non-core Frame Elements), such as the criteria and reasons used by the judge to reach a decision (statutes, codes, previous decisions). The information concerning the semantic frame that each verb evokes was encoded in an xml editor and about twenty contexts illustrating the specific way each specialized verb evokes a given frame were semantically and syntactically annotated. The labels attributed to each semantic frame (e.g. [Compliance], [Verdict]) were used to group together certain synonyms, antonyms as well as equivalent terms. The research identified 165 pairs of candidate equivalents among the 200 Portuguese and English terms that were grouped together into 76 frames. 71% of the pairs of equivalents were considered full equivalents because not only do the verbs evoke the same conceptual scenario but their actantial structures, the linguistic realizations of the actants and their syntactic patterns were similar. 29% of the pairs of equivalents did not entirely meet these criteria and were considered partial equivalents. Reasons for partial equivalence are provided along with illustrative examples. Finally, the study describes the semasiological and onomasiological entry points that JuriDiCo, the bilingual lexical resource compiled during the project, offers to future users. / Les ressources multilingues portant sur le domaine juridique n‘incluent pas toujours d‘équivalents valides pour deux raisons. D‘abord, les systèmes juridiques peuvent différer d‘une communauté linguistique à l‘autre et même d‘un pays à l‘autre, car chacun a son histoire et ses traditions. Par conséquent, le phénomène de la non-isomorphie entre les systèmes juridiques et linguistiques rend difficile la tâche d‘identification des équivalents. En deuxième lieu, en se concentrant surtout sur la définition de la notion d‘équivalence, notion largement débattue en traductologie, mais non suffisamment en terminologie, la littérature ne propose pas de méthodologies solides et systématiques pour identifier les équivalents. On assiste donc à une absence de critères pouvant guider tant les terminologues que les traducteurs dans la recherche et la validation des équivalents des termes. Ce problème est encore plus évident dans le cas d‘unités prédicatives comme les verbes. Bien que certains terminologues (L'Homme, 1998; Lorente et Bevilacqua 2000; Costa et Silva 2004) aient déjà travaillé sur les verbes spécialisés, l‘équivalence terminologique, en ce qui concerne ce type d‘unités, bénéficierait d‘une étude approfondie. En proposant une méthodologie originale pour identifier les équivalents des verbes spécialisés, cette recherche consiste donc à définir des critères de validation de ce type d‘unités prédicatives afin de mieux comprendre le phénomène de l‘équivalence et aussi améliorer les ressources terminologiques multilingues, en général, et les ressources terminologiques multilingues couvrant le domaine juridique, en particulier. Cette étude utilise un corpus comparable portugais-anglais contenant un seul genre de textes, à savoir les décisions des cours suprêmes, à partir duquel 100 verbes spécialisés ont été sélectionnés pour chaque langue. La description des verbes se base sur la théorie de la sémantique des cadres (Fillmore 1976, 1977, 1982, 1985; Fillmore and Atkins 1992), sur la méthodologie de FrameNet (Ruppenhofer et al. 2010), ainsi que sur la méthodologie développée à l‘Observatoire de linguistique Sens-Texte pour compiler des ressources lexicales spécialisées, telles que le DiCoInfo (L‘Homme 2008). La recherche examine d‘autres contributions ayant déjà utilisé ce cadre théorique et méthodologique et propose des adaptations objectives du projet. Au lieu de suivre une démarche descendante comme le font les lexicographes de FrameNet, la démarche que nous décrivons est ascendante, c‘est-à-dire, pour chaque langue séparément, les verbes sont d‘abord analysés puis regroupés par cadres sémantiques. Dans cette recherche, chacun des verbes « évoque » un cadre ou frame, une sorte de scénario conceptuel, dans lequel un certain nombre d‘acteurs obligatoires (core Frame Elements) jouent des rôles spécifiques (le rôle de juge, le rôle d‘appelant, le rôle de la loi). Mis en discours, les termes sont souvent accompagnés d‘autres renseignements optionnels (non-core Frame Elements) comme ceux des critères utilisés par le juge pour rendre une décision (des lois, des codes, d‘autres décisions antérieures). Tous les renseignements concernant les cadres sémantiques que chacun des verbes évoque ont été encodés dans un éditeur xml et une vingtaine de contextes illustrant la façon spécifique dont chacun des verbes évoque un cadre donné ont été annotés. Les étiquettes attribuées à chaque cadre sémantique (ex. [Compliance], [Verdict]) ont servi à relier certains termes synonymes, certains termes antonymes ainsi que des candidats équivalents. Parmi les 200 termes portugais et anglais regroupés en 76 cadres, 165 paires de candidats équivalents ont été identifiés. 71% des paires d‘équivalents sont des équivalents parfaits parce que les verbes évoquent le même scénario conceptuel, leurs structures actancielles sont identiques, les réalisations linguistiques de chacun des actants sont équivalentes, et les patrons syntaxiques des verbes sont similaires. 29% des paires d‘équivalents correspondent à des équivalents partiels parce qu‘ils ne remplissent pas tous ces critères. Au moyen d‘exemples, l‘étude illustre tous les cas de figure observés et termine en présentant les différentes façons dont les futurs utilisateurs peuvent consulter le JuriDiCo, la ressource lexicale qui a été compilée pendant ce projet.

Diese Arbeit untersucht prominente Erfassungsmethoden metakognitiver Aktivitäten die während des Lernprozesses zum Einsatz kommen (online) auf deren Güte und Reaktivität. Im Fokus stehen die Methoden Laut-Denken, Fragebogenmethode sowie die Erfassung von Lernleistungsurteilen. Lernaufgaben werden durch komplexe Textlernaufgaben sowie Problemlöseaufgaben in deren Rahmen abduktive Schlüsse gefordert sind repräsentiert. In Studie 1 wurden metakognitive Aktivitäten die mittels retrospektiv eingesetzten Fragebögen sowie mittels Laut-Denken erfasst wurden gegenübergestellt. Dabei wurden die Fragebogenitems parallel zum polytomen Kategoriensystem mit dessen Hilfe die Daten aus der Laut-Denken-Methode ausgewertet wurden konstruiert. Im Rahmen der Auswertung der Laut-Denken Daten war die Übereinstimmung zweiter unabhängiger, gut geschulter Urteiler unbefriedigend. Die Übereinstimmungsunterschiede zwischen den Kategorien sowie zwischen den Probanden waren erheblich. Dies weist darauf hin, dass das Kategoriensystem nicht zur Auswertung der Laut-Denken Daten geeignet ist. Zudem scheinen große Unterschiede in der Nutzung metakognitiver Aktivitäten zwischen den Probanden zu bestehen. Zwischen Fragebogendaten und Laut-Denken-Daten besteht ein geringer nicht signifikanter negativer Zusammenhang. In Studie 2 wurde die Reaktivität der Laut-Denken-Methode und der Aufzeichnung von Lernleistungsurteilen während des Bearbeitens einer Textlese- sowie Problemlöseaufgabe untersucht. Die Ergebnisse dieser experimentellen Studie mit 2x2 Design legen nahe, dass von Laut-Denken im Rahmen von Problemlöseaufgaben reaktive Effekte zu erwarten sind. Von Lernleistungsurteilen hingegen sind reaktive Effekte lediglich im Rahmen von komplexen Textleseaufgaben zu erwarten. Auch im Rahmen dieser Erhebung mittels Laut-Denken konnte lediglich eine unbefriedigende Reliabilität der Messung berichtet werden obgleich in dieser Studie 11 unabhängige Urteiler zum Einsatz kamen. Auch hier wurde keine erwähnenswerte Korrelation zwischen Fragebogendaten und Laut-Denken Erhebung ermittelt. In Studie 3 wurden metakognitive Aktivitäten zu mehreren Messzeitpunkten im Kontext einer komplexen Gruppenlernaufgabe erhoben. Die Ergebnisse weisen auf einen individuellen Einsatz metakognitiver Aktivitäten unabhängig von der Lernsituation hin. Insgesamt lassen die Ergebnisse der Studien darauf schließen, dass Laut-Denken zumindest dann keine valide Erfassung metakognitiver Aktivitäten während des Lernens ermöglicht, wenn polytome Kategoriensysteme mit einer hohen Anzahl an Kategorien zum Einsatz kommen. Außerdem ist in spezifischen Lernsituationen von potentiellen reaktiven Effekte der Erhebung auszugehen. Dies gilt auch für die Erfassung des Monitoring- und Überwachungs-/Regulierungsverhaltens mittels Lernleistungsurteilen.

This thesis explores the significance of Godel's Theorem for an understanding of law as rules, and of legal adjudication as rule-following. It argues that Godel's Theorem, read through Wittgenstein's understanding of rules and language as a contextual activity, and through Derrida's account of 'undecidability,' offers an alternative account of the relationship of judging to justice. Instead of providing support for the 'indeterminacy' claim, Godel's Theorem illuminates the predicament of undecidability that structures any interpretation and every legal decision, and which constitutes the opening to justice. The first argument in this thesis examines Godel's proof, Wittgenstein's views on rules, and Derrida's undecidability, as manifestations of a common concern with the limits of what can be formalized. The meta-argument examines their misinterpretation and misappropriation within legal theory as a case study of just what they mean about meaning, context, and justice as necessarily co-implicated.

The advent of digital typography has seen the printed letter permeate many aspects of our world, due to its function as the visual manifestation of verbal language. However, few scientific researchers have paid attention to these innocuous and ubiquitous characters. Furthermore, existing typeface research has generally been divided into two strands: For nearly ninety years, communicators (writing, marketing, business, and design professionals) have made attempts to investigate how typefaces of different classes and styles might indicate different personalities to the viewer, and explored the notion of typeface appropriateness. More recently, psychologists have taken advantage of word processing software to manipulate perceptual fluency by changing the fonts of different documents, finding several interesting effects. In this study, two experiments were conducted, with the aim of acknowledging and synthesizing both lines of inquiry. In Experiment 1, a restaurant menu was printed with either an easy-to-read, fluent font or a difficult-to-read, disfluent font. It was expected that reading the disfluent font would influence participants’ (n = 110) choices from the menu as well as certain judgments about the dishes. However, there was only one significant effect, whereby participants who read the disfluent font expected to enjoy their chosen dessert less than those who read the fluent font. In Experiment 2, participants (n = 94) judged a person of the opposite sex using the Big Five Inventory, a measure of human personality. The target photograph was paired with a name set in one of two fonts (familiar and unfamiliar). Female participants rated the target higher on the factor of Openness when the name was printed in the novel font. The results of the current study indicate that to some extent, document designers may safely continue selecting typefaces through intuition, and do not necessarily need the supplementation of additional empirical research.

<p>The Member States of the Southern African Customs Union (SACU) have set as their objectives, amongst others, the facilitation of cross-border movement of goods between the territories of the Member States and the promotion of the integration of Member States into the global economy through enhanced trade and investment. Different approaches to the recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments by Member States and the risk of non-enforcement may lead to legal uncertainty and increased transaction cost for prospective traders, which ultimately act as non-tariff barriers to trade in the region. Trade is critical to Southern Africa, and the ideal is that barriers to trade, of which uncertainty concerning the recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments among Member States is one, should be removed. Certainty, predictability, security of transactions, effective remedies and cost are important considerations in investment decision-making / and clear rules for allocating international jurisdiction and providing definite and expedited means of enforcing foreign judgments will facilitate intraregional as well as interregional trade. In addition to trade facilitation, a harmonised recognition and enforcement regime will consolidate economic and political integration in the SACU. An effective scheme for the mutual recognition and enforcement of civil judgments has been regarded as a feature of any economic integration initiative likely to achieve significant integration. While the harmonisation of the rules on the recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments has been given priority in other regional economic communities, in particularly the European Union, any similar effort to harmonise the rules on recognition and enforcement of Member States have been conspicuously absent in the SACU &ndash / a situation which needs to receive immediate attention. The thesis considers the approaches followed by the European Union with the Brussels Regime, the federal system of the United States of America under the &lsquo / full faith and credit clause&rsquo / the inter-state recognition scheme under the Australia and New Zealand Trans-Tasman judicial system / as well as the convention-approach of the Latin American States. It finds that the most suitable approach for the SACU is the negotiation and adoption by all SACU Member States of a multilateral convention on the recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments, comparable to the 1971 Convention of the Hague Conference on Private International Law / the EU Brussels I Regulation and the Latin-American Montevideo Convention, as complemented by the La Paz Convention. It is imperative that a proposed convention should not merely duplicate previous efforts, but should be drafted in the light of the legal, political and socio-economic characteristics of the SACU Member States. The current legislative provisions in force in SACU Member States are compared and analysed, and the comparison and analysis form the basis of a proposal for a future instrument on recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments for the region. A recommended draft text for a proposed Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Judgments for the SACU is included. This draft text could form the basis for future negotiations by SACU Member States.</p>

Zugl.: Bayreuth, University, Diss., 2006 u.d.T.: Lotter, Anja: Entwicklung der Rechtsprechung zu den Grenzen der Privatautonomie bei Vereinbarungen über den nachehelichen Unterhalt, insbesondere den Betreuungsunterhalt.

Europa-Univ., Habil.-Schr.--Zugl.: Frankfurt (Oder), 2005. / Literaturverz. S. [341] - 363.

Univ., Diss.--Kiel, 2004. / Literaturverz. S. 226 - 243.

Univ., Diss.--Köln, 2002.