INTRODUCTION

Suggested topics
Legal languages
Legal terminology
Legal translation
Characteristics of legal discourse
Legal linguistics and the search for clarity
Language in the courtroom
Forensic linguistics
Language legislation
Linguistic human rights
Language policy and planning: official languages, minority
languages
Preview
Languages for specific purposes v. ordinary language
Legal language v. other LSPs: history, target audience
Genres of legal language
Characteristics of legal languages
Beginnings of interest in legal language
Rise of legal linguistics
Relevance of legal linguistics for linguistics and law
Related branches of law/linguistics
Practical application
The Concept of Legal Language
A functional variant of natural language, with its own
domain of use and particular linguistic norms
(phraseology, vocabulary, hierarchy of terms and
meanings)
Legal language as language for
specific purposes (LSP)
Legal language based on ordinary language
Legal terms whose properties vary according to the
branches of law
Characteristics that distinguish legal language from
ordinary written language (e.g. sentence structure)
Specific legal style
Legal language as a technolect
A language used by a specialist profesion (lawyers)
In the courts and in the government professionals who
are not lawyers (jury members, lay judges, administrators)
Ordinary citizens (will)
Target of messages transmitted in legal language: whole
population, certain layers of the population, or a number of
particular citizens
Law requires compliance of all people; court judgment
relates to the parties involved in the case
Legal language not an instrument aimed solely at
internal communication within the legal profession
Legal language
Governs all areas of social life
Through intertextuality, can be combined with
language from any domain
Very old, which is not the case with other LSPs
It has shaped the ordinary language of various
countries in a significant way
Legal language
The population may use another language than that
forming the basis of the legal language
Middle Ages: Latin
Today: legal language of African countries English or
French; local languages spoken in everyday
communication
In Finland: legal language until 19th c. - Swedish
Genres of legal language
Genres of legal language: spoken/written
Language of lawyers: legal authors, legislators, judges,
administrators, advocates
Private documents : contracts, wills
International agreements
Legalese
Style of legal language: a spectrum that extends from the
solemn cast of the Constitution to everyday legal texts
All professions develop their own jargon, which
strenghtens internal relationships and coherence of the
group
Part of legal jargon common to all sub-groups of lawyers
Some expressions - only used by a single sub-group of
lawyers, or even within a particular court or department
(ministry, supreme court)
 Counter-language of the
Criminal Fraternity
The language of offenders a counter-language of
legal language, notably criminal law
The heart of this: prison slang
Functions: strenghtens relationships of groups of
prisoners in relation to prison officers and the justice
system; a secret code, rapidly changing and largely
unknown to prison officers; frequency of synonyms (in
Finnish prison slang:70 expressions to describe a police
officer, 30 to describe imprisonment)
Beginnings of interest in legal
language
Law bound to language
In some contexts, linguistic aspect of law dominates:
legal translation,
legal lexicography,
legal rhetoric,
judicial interpretation
Legal translation: history
1st legal translated text that has survived: the peace
treaty between the Egyptians and the Hittites dating
from 1271 BC, followed by innumerable translations
Corpus iuris civilis first translated into Greek, than
into many other languages
In medieval times, legal translation focused on Latin:
texts were translated from different vernaculars into
Latin and from Latin into various vernaculars
Legal lexicography: history
Roman law: creating a conceptual system which
requires clarifying connections between legal concepts
Defining terms expressing concepts
This has led to compiling legal lexicons
1st legal lexicon: Gaius Aelius Gallus, De verborum
quae ad jus pertinent significatione (On the meaning
of words referring to the law), 1st c. BC
Tradition of legal lexicography: carried on in
Byzantium and in Western Europe
Legal lexicography
In Western Europe medieval legal dictionaries first
published in Latin, later in new national languages
1st bilingual lexicons of legal language compiled in
Byzantium (Latin-Greek lexicons)
Lexicons- partly encyclopaedic dictionaries, partly
dictionaries of definitions
Legal lexicography
Later, an analogous need arose in Western Europe as
to links between Latin and new national languages
When Latin was replaced by modern languages, the
need arose to compile legal dictionaries between
various European national languages
Rhetoric
In Ancient Greece, r. was closely connected with
activities of advocates before the courts
1st treatise on rhetoric written by Corax of Syracuse
in 5th c. B.C.; its focus: legal rhetoric
In the Middle Ages, rhetoric was one of the three
subjects of the teaching trivium (grammar, logic and
rhetoric); an important place in the training of
European lawyers
Legal linguistics today
Modern linguistics developed at the beginning of 20th
c.
Enormous progress of science and technology in 20th
c. gave birth to study LSP (Fachsprachen, lengues de
spcialit both comparatively and in relation to
ordinary language
Legal linguistics
Linguistique juridique, jurilinguistique
Rechtslinguistik (Recht und Sprache)
Juryslingwistika (Polish)
Pravovaia lingvistika (Russian)
Legal linguistics
Research: synchronic (contemporary language) or
diachronic (historical)
Canada: contrastive analysis of two legal languages
(English and French); closely bound up with the
science of translation; this type of legal linguistics has
spread to other countries, such as Poland
Legal linguistics
In all schools undertaking research into legal
language, lawyers and linguists are to be found
Researchers: often dual training, or a study is carried
out in close cooperation between lawyers and linguists
Today researchers with linguistic training often use
quantitative methods with the aid of computers; a
typical research subject: occurrences of terms, or other
linguistic elements (e.g. prefixes, suffixes) in legal texts
Legal linguistics
Research topic: understandability and readability of
legal texts from the stand-point of non-lawyers
Legal linguistics
Examines the development, characteristics and usage
of legal language
Studies may concern vocabulary (terminology), syntax
(sentence structure), or semantics (meanings)
A synthesis between legal science and linguistics,
notably applied linguistics
Also based on sociolinguistics
Legal linguistics
Closely connected to semantics
Lexicology a central position; it is through
terminology that legal language differs from ordinary
language
Legal lexicography compiling legal lexicons and
dictionaries
Syntax: sentence length, frequency of subordinate
clauses
Legal linguistics
Morphology: the construction of compound words from
the standpoint of their clarity
Forensic linguistics - examines production and perception
of utterances from the legal standpoint, notably in courts:
phonetic analysis of human voice (threatening phone
calls), verifying the authenticity of documents
Research into legal style (application in rhetoric): how
advocates convince judges of the worth of their messages
Legal linguistics
Historical studies: how vocabulary has changed over
time; the countries and epochs of origin of borrowed
legal words; how is legal language used in various legal
sub-cultures (researchers, judges, advocates); to what
extent is legal terminology known by the general
public; how and when lawyers began to use modern
languages instead of Latin and what is the current
importance of Latin in todays legal languages
 Legal semiotics and legal
symbolism
Spoken language is only one means of
communication; animals transmit messages without
language
Human beings also communicate in different ways
Semiotics examines all kinds of communication
together
Legal semiotics
Research into the symbols of power and judicial rituals
Messages that are not verbal, but express the authority
and prestige of judicial bodies: solemnity of court-
houses, judges dress, positioning of judges and parties
in the courtroom, rituals of legal procedure wordless
messages
Legal semiotics
Closely related to legal linguistics: the tone of the
judge, the prosecutor, and the advocate, rhetorical
pauses in their speech, the requirement that the public
maintain absolute silence
Written presentations: the material, colour,
decoration of documents
Legal semiotics
Legal circles employ non-verbal signals that transmit
legal messages
How effective is legal communication by non-verbal
means?
E.g. drawings or charts annexed to a contract or a law
Body language (e.g. traffic police hand signals), visual
signs (road signs, landmarks), sound signals (river
traffic communications)
Symbols expressing authority: heraldry, flags, medals
Related disciplines: Legal
informatics
Examines and teaches various forms of relationship
between the law and information and between law and
informatics, as well as related problems of legal regulation
and interpretation
Legal style, structure of laws, intertextual references
Systematisation of legal texts
Structure of legal texts, use of notes and appendices,
methods of emphasizing passages in the text and of
showing links between different parts of the text (chapter
and paragraph numbering, bold or italic script for headings
and key words
Related disciplines: legal
science
Systematizes the legal order through legal concepts
Primary interest concepts
Legal linguistics terms are the primary object of
research
Legal science meaning of legal terms
Links with other legal studies
Legal theory, legal informatics, legal sociology, history
of law fundamwental importance from the
standpoint of legal linguistics
In the development of legal language, history of
language and history of law are fused; impossible to
understand the circumstances in which legal language
is used without knowing sociological dana
Comparative law - helps legal linguist to understand
the interactive links between various languages used
for legal purposes
Legal interpretation
Semantic and syntactic arguments important part
Linguistic methods, notably those of textual
linguistics, useful to legal scholars and practical
lawyers in the task of interpreting
Legal linguistics
Uses statistical methods that complete the picture of
legal language and of law obtained through other
sources
Regularities in usage of legal language of great
interest from the theory and sociology of law
Foreign influences on national legal science can be
brought into the open (citations in foreign languages
identifyinfg which foreign cultures have influenced
national legal thinking, and, indirectly, the legal
system of a country)
Comparative law
Research in legal linguistics often focuses on a single
legal language; some major studies examine the
development, structure and vocabulary of two or more
languages; interaction of languages (how words pass
from one legal language to another
Comparative law: methods for comparing legal
cultures ; conclusions on the basis of differences and
similarities found; the division of legal systems into
major families and sub-families of law
Comparative law
Sheds light on factors that influence the development
of the systems of concepts in the background of legal
terms; better understanding of legal terminology
Legal translation and lexicography presuppose that
the correspondence of concepts belonging to the legal
systems in question would have been carefully
analyzed; knowledge is required of the various
institutes in these systems, notably of institutes of
procedural law the core of comparative law
Language policy
1) Legal effects and rules on the use of language
2) the right of an individual or a group to be taught in
their own language, and of the public use of that
language
Language policy
Some states aim to stifle use of languages other than the
one that dominates as the language of instruction and
public life; the right of individuals or groups to use their
own language matter of regulation under public
international law
The language regime of the EU
Safeguarding the purity of the national language under
pressure of another language
The right of citizens to require courts and authorities to use
a language that they clearly understand
The right to clear, comprehensible language
Linguistic risk
Who bears the risk that a party to a contract may
misunderstand the content of the contract for
linguistic reasons?
The rule in contract law according to which standard
clauses vaguely formulated are interpreted to the
disadvantage of their author (in dubio contra
stipulatorem); in the case of standard contracts the
specialist who drew them bears the risk
Linguistic risk
Cases with international features, esp. those involving
immigrants problems: contract is clear, but one party
does not understand it
Allocation of linguistic risk a topic of lively
discussion in Germany in the case of employment
contracts of immigrant workers
Importance of legal-linguistic
knowledge: linguistics
Limits of variation of natural languages and languages
for special purposes
Principles of language change
Ways in which the language of judges and officials
influences the development of ordinary language
Application of legal linguistics
Practical lawyering
Translation
Lexicography
Terminology
Practical lawyering
Legal language lawyers basic tool
Studies of characteristics of legal language can reveal
shortcomings; improvements
Complex documents poorly drafted often allow several
interpretaions
It is not enough for lawyers to be familiar only with
their language knowledge of foreign languages for
special purposes necessary for international
cooperation
Translation
Europe increasingly needs translations of legal texts
EU translators use automated translation tools and
computer-aided methods of human translation
Automated translation and use of terminological
databanks presuppose human control
Human control of automated translation based on
the culture and general knowledge of the translator;
information on characteristics of legal language
Lexicography and terminological
work
Legal linguists study legal vocabulary and its
characteristics and pave the way for the practical work
of compiling dictionaries and lexicons
Standpoint of terminologists opposite to that of
lexicographers: the point of departure for
terminological work concept, that for lexicographical
work term
Terminological study based on careful analysis of
systems of concepts; glossaries resulting from such
studies- highly accurate
Lexicography and terminological
work
Legal terms often multiple meanings (polysemy);
terminological studies essential support for
traditional lexicography: analysing terms
corresponding to the systems of concepts focus of
interest; basis of legal dictionaries, completed by
studies as to meanings appearing in the actual use of
legal terms