Shock absorbers, tax wedges and white resignations: language challenges in comparative industrial relations

This article examines linguistic issues arising from the discourse of comparative labour law and industrial relations. In an analytical framework based on the work of cognitive linguists such as George Lakoff and Mark Johnson (1980) and Lakoff (1987) the article takes as its starting point certain ideologically loaded terms that are contentious in their country of origin, and then considers the most common problem, that of identifying connections between concepts, institutions and practices across national systems. The focus then turns to intralinguistic variation, arguing that in the disciplinary domain under examination several terms are often used for what is substantially the same concept. The question of faux amis is then considered, followed by a discussion of metaphor and the problem of attempting to transpose metaphoric from one language into another. The conclusions highlight the importance for the translator of identifying specific regional and national terms in the globalized labour market.