Strategies of Indeterminacy in Legal Discourse: A Contrastive Analysis (Italian-Russian-German)

This paper investigates the use of general and specific extenders in legislative texts across three languages—Italian, Russian, and German—focusing on intellectual property law. Through a contrastive, corpus-based analysis, the study examines their frequency, structure, and degrees of modification. Particular attention is given to specific extenders, which emerge as key tools for managing vagueness. The findings suggest that extenders contribute to the balance between precision and flexibility in normative writing, revealing cross-linguistic patterns and strategies that reflect the functional needs of legal discourse.