Glossmen (DIRECT × 2026)

Glossmen, lexical mediation, regulatory linguistics, institutional translation, semantic arbitration 1. Introduction Legal and regulatory documents are often described as “closed universes” of meaning, where every term is expected to carry a fixed, jurisdictional definition. However, in practice, terms such as “reasonable,” “material,” or “substantial equivalence” shift meaning across borders, agencies, and professional cultures. This phenomenon—known as semantic drift in regulated language —generates compliance risk, litigation, and delayed approvals.

(Full text of the three hypothetical regulatory pairs and the six low-glossability terms used in the experiment.) glossmen

United Nations Commission on International Trade Law. (1980). United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG). jurisdictional definition. However