Discourse of termination of employment at FIAT: A conceptual, legal and terminological analysis

Terminological and conceptual differences within the general discourse of labour and employment law comprise the object of studies covering different research fields, e.g. Comparative Labour Law, Industrial Relations, Legal Studies, Semiotics, Social Sciences, and Translation Studies. A significant amount of scholarly attention has been paid to conceptual differences arising from the notion of ‘termination’. In addition, a substantial body of research has been devoted to the investigation of those concepts in the disciplines of labour law and industrial relations which pose special challenges from a terminological point of view when compared and contrasted with apparently similar notions in other national legal systems. Taking as a point of departure the previous literature, this paper provides a comparative analysis of some concepts associated with the termination of employment in a number of countries, primarily considering aspects of relevant national labour laws, then further investigating issues from both the linguistic and semantic point of view. The adopted approach will be of an interdisciplinary nature, mainly involving notions pertaining to linguistics and industrial relations. In this connection, this paper will examine a practical case, namely the case of FIAT, a multinational with its headquarters in Italy. The system of labour law in a number of countries where FIAT has employees will be briefly analysed, followed by some considerations of a terminological and conceptual nature. The analysis will point out a number of questions in both linguistic and conceptual terms that are of interest in comparative terms, as the result of different cultural, historical and political developments.