The use of non-linguistic semiotic systems in legal communication is increasing. The use of icons, diagrams, and even comic strips and illustrations is becoming more common in legal documents, such as contracts or privacy policies, to communicate legislative innovations and to indicate the key features of current legislation.

However, lawyers have mainly focused on the linguistic dimension of legal communication, and have omitted the intersemiotic dimension. Due to education and practice, lawyers and courts are affected by a logocentric prejudice. There are no corresponding traditions in law to guide the interpretation of other semiotic tools.

We have attempted to demonstrate that the semiotic tools that are available to contemporary jurists are manifold. Due to the advancement of information technology and digital law, intersemiotic translations will gain ever-increasing importance in the legal profession.

The aim of this book is not to cultivate an idealized view of the current situation; the aim of this research is to provide an overview, albeit partial, of the forms of intersemiotic legal translation that are currently in use by taking their limitations, possible distortions, and potential into account.

Signs are simply tools; like any tool, they can be used to produce positive outcomes such as reducing language barriers, making legal instruments more accessible for the common person, promoting social inclusion, simplifying economic exchanges and legal interactions, and preventing conflicts and lawsuits. However, the application of the techniques of intersemiotic translation can also be used ideologically to communicate the content of unjust laws, to deceive a contractor, to take advantage of the cognitive biases of a user, or otherwise provide an unfair advantage over others.

Nonetheless, these tools are part of a cultural and legal vista with which contemporary lawyers are already grappling.

Therefore, lawyers and legal scholars can no longer afford to ignore the limitations or the potential of intersemiotic legal translation.