Lexical and semantic challenges in teaching and learning political and legal specialised language at the Preparatory Programme of Romanian Language for Foreign Citizens

Abstract

The present paper is related to an on-going research into the lexical and semantic challenges posed in the process of teaching and learning the specialised political and legal language. In fact, the analysis of these challenges is based on the author’s extensive experience in teaching the respective specialised language at the Preparatory Programme for Foreign Citizens (University of Bucharest). The aforementioned challenges are caused by two semantic relations (i.e., polysemy and synonymy), which disregard the unambiguous communication essential for any terminology. To address this issue, the paper argues that teachers of specialised languages should regularly raise the students’ awareness of the various meanings and potential synonyms that a term may have. Additionally, the paper advocates the necessity of a glossary of terms and contexts of usage that should accompany a textbook dedicated to a specialised language.