Deprivation of liberty or imprisonment? Metaphorical motivation of some terms in the Criminal Code of the Republic of Lithuania and their translation into English

Abstract

Abstract The paper sets out to examine the stability and motivation of collocations with the word laisvė ‘liberty, freedom’ in the Criminal Code of the Republic of Lithuania and tendencies of their rendering into English. The methodology of research relies on the cognitive linguistic principles of embodiment, the understanding of metaphor in terms of cross-domain mappings, the relevance of context and frames. The results demonstrate very stable collocations in Lithuanian, all of which are metaphorically motivated and constitute legal terms. Their translation into English uncovers some tendencies of the same and different conceptualisation of such notions of criminal law as the restriction of liberty, deprivation of liberty, imprisonment and some others. The English terms, equivalents of the selected Lithuanian terms with the word laisvė, are much less metaphorical than could be expected.