Research Projects

Benedikt Pirker (PI) and Izabela Skoczen (Postdoctoral Researcher).

Spark Grant CRSK 1_190912/1.

Swiss National Science Foundation; 2020-2021.

Tomasz Gizbert-Studnicki (PI), Izabela Skoczeń, Francesca Poggi, Krzysztof Posłajko, Paweł Banaś, Francesco Ferraro, Katarzyna Kijania-Placek.

The project focused on two questions:

1. Is legal interpretivism a threat to communicative accounts of legal content?
2. What are the consequences of adopting an answer to the first question for our notions of intentionality, interpretation, normativity and responsibility?

Harmonia project 2018/30/M/HS5/00254; National Science Centre, Poland; 2019-2024.

Friedemann Vogel (2019–2021, funded by the BMJV).

Hanjo Hamann und Friedemann Vogel

Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities, Baden-Württemberg; 2017–2019.

Design and development of a legal reference corpus (JuReko)

Hanjo Hamann and Friedemann Vogel

2014–2017, funded by the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities, Baden-Württemberg.

Principal Investigator: Izabela Skoczeń

The project aimed to answer two main questions:

1. Does the choice of using one expression associated with scalar implicatures rather than another enable us to manipulate the beliefs our hearers generate?
2. Are the mechanisms of such manipulation identical or different depending on whether they are used in legal or non-legal contexts?;

Preludium grant 2015/19/N/HS5/00029; National Science Centre, Poland; 2016-2020.

Principal Investigator: Izabela Skoczeń

The project aimed to answer the following question: Are there pragmatic effects in the legal language? If the answer is positive, then what mechanisms explain their functioning?

Diamentowy Grant DI2012 019042; Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education; 2014-2018.

Principal Investigator: Edward Clay

How has the EU’s legal language changed since the UK’s withdrawal? And what are the implications of the changes for the policy and lawmaking environment of the EU and the UK?

(Project webpage); Ref: ECF-2024-607; The Leverhulme Trust; 2025-2028

Jekaterina Nikitina (PI & local coordinator for the University of Milan), Lucja Biel (local coordinator for the University of Warsaw), Annarita Felici (local coordinator for the University of Geneva), Tomáš Duběda (local coordinator for Charles University, Prague).

The objectives of the project are to:

1. Map institutional and civil society communication in health (preventive medicine/vaccination) and legal contexts (asylum/migration) across the four states, creating a multilingual corpus;
2. Compare communication practices in urban settings across countries, identifying macro-trends in genres, target audiences and demographic challenges, languages, and institutional vs. grassroots approaches;
3. Examine communication strategies in depth on a selected sample of texts;
4. Create and disseminate culturally sensitive communication models and guidelines among the practitioners (public health specialists, asylum officers, social workers, etc), contributing to equitable access to health/socio-legal services in urban populations;
5. Integrate expertise across disciplines and countries to strengthen cross-cluster collaboration within 4EU+ through coordinated workflows, shared resources, and interdisciplinary methods ensuring long-term impact in the 4EU+ member countries.

Funded within 4EU+ Alliance under the SEED4EU+ 2025 call, project webpage, period: 2025-2026.

(Croatian Science Foundation, IP-2025-02-3140, 2025-2028, Principal Investigator: Martina Bajčić, University of Rijeka, Faculty of Law)

Generative Artificial Intelligence in Legal Translation – Pravni fakultet

(NextGenEU, uniri-iz-25-63, 2025-2029, Principal Investigator: Martina Bajčić, University of Rijeka, Faculty of Law)

Legal Terminology Management in the Digital Age – Pravni fakultet

Website

Funded by IULM (Milan, Italy)

Principal investigator: Dr Fabrizio Gallai (PI, IULM)

Other participants: Prof Amalia Amato (University of Bologna), Prof Mariachiara Russo (University of Bologna), María Jesús González Rodríguez (University of Bologna), Prof Barbara Sorgoni (University of Turin), Dr Giacomo Pozzi (IULM), Valentina Baselli (IULM), Attorney Maurizio Veglio (ASGI).

Objectives: This research project arises from the need to examine a key moment in asylum procedures, upon which decisions of fundamental importance to applicants’ lives depend. Hearings before the Territorial Commissions constitute the institutional space in which asylum seekers are called upon to recount their often complex and traumatic experiences through communication mediated by interpreters or linguistic-cultural mediators. ICAHI activities unfold across multiple phases over a two-year period (2025–2027): The first phase is devoted to analysing data collected in a previous project, including transcripts and documents related to hearings and interviews with officials, interpreters, and asylum seekers. This phase provides the empirical foundation for the entire project. The second phase focuses on data analysis and the design of interprofessional training modules. Through dialogue and focus groups, our project seeks to engage stakeholders in reflecting on the critical issues identified and on possible strategies for improvement. The third phase is dedicated to piloting the training activities and to dissemination and outreach initiatives. This phase includes public events, seminars, and awareness-raising activities aimed at both specialist audiences and local communities.

PNRR Young Researcher (funded by the Italian Ministry of University and Research (MUR))

Duration: 3 years

Principal Investigator: Giulia Lombardi

The ILDILAW project aims to analyse implicit linguistic devices (presuppositions, implicatures, vagueness) found in legal documents drafted by Italian lawyers. Drawing on the “Minerva” corpus—the first searchable archive of Italian legal acts (over 1.2 million tokens, compiled within the national “AttiChiari” project)—the research adopts corpus-based methods and is situated within the field of text linguistics. The objective is to calculate an implicitness index and to examine the distribution of implicit content within the informational and semantic-pragmatic structure of legal texts. The study contributes to understanding the textual organisation of Italian legal discourse, often characterised by complex syntax and specialised vocabulary, and is relevant for linguistic simplification and transparency in legal communication. The project will also analyse the ideological and cultural content conveyed implicitly, with particular attention to gender, ethnicity, and other social categories. The expected results provide insights for legal-linguistic training and for the development of guidelines that promote clearer, more equitable writing.

(No. S-MIP-24-135); funded by the Lithuanian Research Council

Duration: 3 years

Coordinator and Principal Investigator: Jūratė Ruzaitė

Research team: Edita Gruodytė, Monika Guliakaitė-Danisevičienė, Justina Urbonaitė, Ugnė Urbšytė-Urbonavičiūtė, Gintarė Žalkauskaitė-Gerasimenkienė

The aim of this project is to conduct a legal-linguistic analysis of hate speech and the rationale for court judgements in hate speech cases, and to develop a multi-layered model of criteria for determining HS which would help to differentiate between offensive language and hate speech. The novelty of this project lies in several areas: this is the first systematic interdisciplinary (legal-linguistic) study of hate speech in Lithuania; it is based on two types of data: comments collected from the public domain and court cases; it applies a multi-layered linguistic perspective; and it analyses both overt and covert hate speech. The research analyses ECHR case law to identify the practices and criteria used to determine hate speech. The second phase consists of an analysis of linguistic hate speech realisations and court decisions in national cases, followed by an analysis of data from the public domain. The results will be evaluated against the criteria applied by the ECHR and used as a basis for analysing hate speech features, developing a methodology for the study of hate speech, and a detailed model for determining hate speech. The criteria model will be primarily applicable to the analysis of hate speech in pre-trial investigations, but can also be relevant to the development of automated hate speech detection tools and to the general public.