The paper explores formulaicity in judicial English and Polish Eurolects (cf. Biel et al., 2021) from a comparative, corpus- and genre-based perspective, focusing on Advocate Generals’ (AGs’) opinions and judgments of the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU). AGs’ opinions are merely advisory, non-binding, and display greater stylistic flexibility. In the absence of dissenting or concurring opinions within the CJEU’s decision-making process (cf. Laffranque, 2004), these opinions play a pivotal role in enhancing transparency and democratising European supranational jurisprudence.
The paper studies the application of grammar patterns (Francis et al., 1996; Hunston & Francis, 2000), specifically it v-link ADJ that (e.g. it is obvious that) and it v-link ADJ to-inf (it is necessary to), in research on formulaicity in translated and non-translated judicial language. Grammar patterns have demonstrated significant potential for cross-linguistic studies (cf. Grabowski and Groom, 2021), including the study of evaluation (Goźdź-Roszkowski, 2024; Koźbiał 2025). The study hypothesizes that formulaicity in EU judicial discourse varies both internally (across sub-genres) and externally (in comparison to non-translated national judicial languages). The research questions are: (1) How are selected English grammar patterns rendered in Polish, and what are their discourse functions? (2) Can the Polish equivalents be generalized into lexico-grammatical patterns specific to Polish?
The research material comprises a bilingual genre-based parallel corpus consisting of two pairs of sub-corpora with 55 translator-mediated texts each): (1) English versions of AGs’ opinions, (2) Polish versions of AGs’ opinions, (3) English versions of CJ judgments, and (4) Polish versions of CJ judgments (type of procedure: action for annulment of EU acts). Two reference corpora are used: (1) 50 non-translated UK Supreme Court judgments (Pérez and Rizzo, 2012), and (2) 56 non-translated Polish Constitutional Tribunal judgments. The analysis is conducted using CQL queries in Sketch Engine (Kilgarriff et al., 2014).
The study demonstrates that texts along the supranational-national axis develop distinct formulaic profile and that high formulaicity is a defining feature of both AGs’ opinions and CJEU judgments, even despite AGs’ opinions having a more idiosyncratic style. Grammar patterns not only shape these profiles but are also crucial for expressing evaluative meanings and supporting judicial argumentation. The pattern grammar approach proves effective for the phraseological profiling of judicial texts in both English and Polish. The methodology, supplemented by qualitative analysis, helps to identify recurrent lexico-grammatical patterns with shared discourse functions, providing useful insights for translators on fixed constructions and their natural equivalents. The study contributes to research on the linguistic profiling of legal genres using corpus methods (cf. Pontrandolfo and Goźdź-Roszkowski 2014; Biel et al., 2021).
Biel, Ł., D, Koźbiał & D. Müller (2021). The judicial English Eurolect: A genre profiling of CJEU judgments. In S. Goźdź-Roszkowski & G. Pontrandolfo (Eds.), Law, Language and the Courtroom (pp. 3–25). New York: Routledge.
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Goźdź-Roszkowski, S. (2024). Language and Legal Judgments: Evaluation and Argument in Judicial Discourse. London: Routledge.
Grabowski, Ł. & N. Groom (2021). Grammar patterns as an exploratory tool for studying formulaicity in English-to-Polish translation: A corpus-based study. In Aleksandar Trklja & Łukasz Grabowski (Eds.), Formulaic language: Theories and methods, 171–190. Berlin: Language Science Press.
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Koźbiał, D. (2025). Using grammar patterns to analyse evaluation in judicial argumentation across English and Polish Eurolects. In S. Goźdź-Roszkowski and G. Pontrandolfo (Eds.), In the Minds of Judges. Argumentative Discourse at the Intersection of Law and Language (pp. 61–92). Berlin: De Gruyter.
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Pontrandolfo, G. & S. Goźdź-Roszkowski (2014). Exploring the Local Grammar of Evaluation: The Case of Adjectival Patterns in American and Italian Judicial Discourse. Research in Language, 12(1), 71–91.