Language and translation are fundamental to comparative law not only as materials and tools in comparisons but also as determinants of methodological choices. Their importance has been largely downplayed in comparative law and it was not until recently that they were acknowledged more explicitly by interdisciplinary postmodern comparative methods. This chapter discusses linguistic approaches to comparative law which foreground the issues of language and translation in comparisons, relying on insights from legal linguistics and legal translation studies. The chapter first discusses methodological developments in comparative law and linguistics which have facilitated this shift. It presents cognitive and communicative aspects of legal semantics and their implications for the depth of comparisons. The chapter next centres on theoretical foundations of and approaches to legal translation in a variety of intersystemic, intrasystemic and hybrid contexts. The final section gives an overview of legal linguistic comparisons beyond the term level, focusing on genres and Eurolects. In conclusion, it is argued that linguistic approaches should be integrated more systematically, triangulated with other comparative law methods and supported by empirical research.

H. Patrick Glenn’s works are the result of a profound reflection on the epistemological conditions of comparative law in our epoch. He recognized that, since the emergence of the modern state, legal theory focused nearly exclusively on the state as a source of law. His approach to the study of comparative law expressed the conviction that a historical shift in emphasis in the conceptualization of Western law was long overdue. Accordingly, he considered how states and state law exist in a larger context, where alternative forms of normativity are working. This reflection brought about the open recognition of a wider range of sources of law and a wider range of relations between laws and between peoples, which explains why much of his work is to be inscribed in the paradigm of legal pluralism. His work goes beyond that paradigm, however, by exploring what pluralism entails both at the national and at the transnational level for comparative law studies, and for their methodological orientation. This chapter pays tribute to his vision and his scholarship by exploring how comparative law can fruitfully engage with legal anthropology, legal linguistics, and translation studies, as well as with the dynamics of transnational and global law.