Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to draw attention to the significant differences that exist
between the wording of the Italian and Ticino legal sublanguages. The article provides
several Polish terms from the domain of criminal law, which are accompanied by their
Italian and Ticino equivalents. The analysis is based on the most authoritative sources,
namely on parallel texts such as criminal codes and codes of criminal procedure. The article
indicates terminological inhomogeneity and inconsistencies in the Ticino legal language.
Moreover, it highlights the necessity of using female forms for the names of occupations
in the diatopic variant of the Italian language of Ticino. These forms do not occur in the
standard Italian language; if they do, however, they are often viewed as unacceptable. The
article also provides a cumulative table of terms and their counterparts in both variants of
the Italian language.