Language of Law | Legal

English
Marinescu Felicia | Radu Diana Cristina | 3rd year |
English minor

Overview on Legal English

Referred to as a sublanguage as it differs from ordinary English in

matter of :
Vocabulary
Morphology
Syntax
Semantics

Legalese pejorative term associated with the traditional style

of legal writing that is part of the specialized discourse of lawyers
Poor legal writing : cluttered, wordy, indirect, use of
unnecessary technical words
usually considered reader-unfriendly
the 4Cs : Clear, Correct, Concise, Complete =

characteristics of good legal writing style

Genres of Legal English

Academic

legal writing law journals

legal writing court

judgements

Juridical

legal writing laws,

regulations, contracts, treaties

Legislative
Language

used to communicate with

clients reader-friendly

Concrete use of Legal English

Legal documents contracts, licenses

Court pleadings summonses, briefs, judgements

Laws Acts of Parliament and subordinate legislation, case reports

Legal correspondence

Generally

used by English-speaking countries common law tradition

Legalese

is also the language of international business & the legal

language within the EU, which led to it becoming a global phenomenon,
known as

LAWSPEAK

Historical
development
of Legal
English

Modern Legal English is

based on standard English,
mostly.

Has unusual features related

to :
Terminology
Linguistic structure
Linguistic conventions
Punctuation

Legal English differs greatly from standard English in a number

of ways. The most important of these differences are as follows:

Ordinary words used with special meanings. For example, the familiar term
considerationrefers, in legal English, tocontracts, and means,an act, forbearance or
promise by one part to a contract that constitutes the price for which the promise of
the other part is bought. Other examples are: construction, prefer, redemption,
furnish, hold,andfind.

Lack ofpunctuation. One aspect of archaic legal drafting particularly in conveyances

anddeeds is the conspicuous absence of punctuation. In modern legal drafting,
punctuation is used, and helps to clarify theirmeaning

Use of unfamiliarpro-forms. For example,the same, the said, the aforementionedetc.

The use of such terms in legal texts is interesting since very frequently they do not
replace the noun which is the whole purpose of pro-forms but are used as
adjectives to modify the noun. For example,the said John Smith.

Use ofpronominal adverbs. Words likehereof, thereof,andwhereof are not often

used in ordinary modern English. They are used in legal English primarily to avoid
repeating names or phrases. For example,the parties heretoinstead ofthe parties to

Ambiguity and Misunderstanding

Chicken

A ship

Frozen
chicken

A young bird
suitable for
broiling or frying

Peerless
leaving in
October

Manufactured
products

Any suitable
member of the
species
regardless of
age

Peerless
leaving in
December

Agricultural
commodities

Syntactic ambiguity

In English, this kind is most often due either to the order

of the words in a sentence or to grammatical properties,
such as the relationship between a pronoun and possible
words to which the pronoun may refer. There are court
cases where syntactic ambiguity has become a life-ordeath issue. The Supreme Court of the United States
must decide the constitutionality of a jury instruction
that contains an adjective followed by several nouns.
Does the adjective modify only the noun immediately
after it or all of the nouns in the series? Even though the
distinction may seem rather trivial, this instruction
originally was given to a jury deliberating in a capital
case. Now a mans life is to hinge on the Courts
resolution of the ambiguity!

Metaphor and Legal Fictions

He
ar
t

Va
se

L
a
w

Br
ok
en

Pro
mis
e

Le
g

The law too has expressions that

began as metaphors for example, a
meeting of the minds, a ripening of
obligations, a binding agreement, a
broken contract. However, the law
has found the need for an even more
intriguing kind of metaphor the
legal fiction. Acknowledged not to
be literally true, nonetheless fictions
are treated as though they were. Lon
Fuller, who was a law professor at
Stanford University and whose book,
Legal Fictions, is now a classic,
introduced this topic to the Englishspeaking legal community.