Common language and legal language

Introduction:
Plain dialect is more than just words Plain dialect is a client driven way to deal with composing
and outlining reports. It is utilized as a part of a scope of authoritative archives or reports with
legitimate impact. It evades ancient words, language, unnecessary specialized expressions,.
furthermore, complex dialect. In any case, it is not shortsighted English. It expects to convey
data in the most efficient and compelling way imaginable while remaining in fact right. It
accomplishes this by considering the requirements of the planned clients of the archive Plain
dialect is about more than just words. It is additionally worried with sorting out thoughts with the
goal that they sound good to the pursuer, and planning archives to make them simple to utilize. It
includes knowing the capacity of an archive from conversing with the general population who
will utilize it to discover their needs. The plain dialect process incorporates testing to evaluate
the effectiveness of the new report. Testing likewise appears any issues with the archive before it
is presented.
So while the words and expressions utilized as a part of authoritative archives are vital for
making them easier to peruse, journalists must consider all these different elements also.
Nature of Common language:
One of the great paradoxes about the legal profession is that lawyers are, on the one hand, among
the most eloquent users of the English language while, on the other, they are perhaps its most
notorious abusers. Why is it that lawyers, who may excel in communicating with a jury, seem
incapable of writing an ordinary, comprehensible English sentence in a contract, deed, or will?
And what can we do about it?
Consider, first, the eloquence of the legal profession. Daniel Webster was famed for his
oratory skills. Called upon to assist the prosecution in a murder case, Webster addressed any
hesitations the jurors might have harbored about their power to punish the guilty. In doing so, he
provided a memorable defense of the theory of deterrence:
The criminal law is not founded in a principle of vengeance. It does not punish that it may inflict
suffering. The humanity of the law feels and regrets every pain that it causes, every hour of
restraint it imposes, and more deeply still, every life it forfeits. But it uses evil, as the means of

preventing greater evil. It seeks to deter from crime, by the example of punishment. This is its
true, and only true main object. It restrains the liberty of the few offenders, that the many who
do not offend, may enjoy their own liberty. It forfeits the life of the murderer, that other murders
may not be committed.1
The Rise of Legal Language
Characteristics of Legal Language:
1. Introduction
Legal language. Once an almost magical language of words of stipulation and oaths that should
have impressed its subjects and submit them in awe to its absolute obedience. Now, it may be
said that the awe has disappeared, but the magic of the language of the law somehow persists,
mainly due to its so called vices unintelligibility or wordiness. Everyday situations and
relationships are governed by law whether people like it or not. Legal positivism argues that all
our actions are covered by law (i.e. legislation, legal principles derived from judicial decisions in
Common Law, or contracts) based on the principle that what is not prohibited by the law is
permitted (see for example Weinberger 1995). Making pirouettes on the roof of my house every
day at five oclock in the morning would be considered legal because there is no law
prohibiting such an activity. But let me present a less absurd example. Even by getting on the
bus, though not in writing, individuals conclude a contract with the transportation agency. In
every tram or bus a list of business terms can be found an official-looking piece of paper
divided in articles, sections or paragraphs, full of rights and obligations of the transporter as well
as the customer. The society is inter-bound by an enormous number of agreements, arrangements
and contracts, stating or implying rights and duties of its parties. To give them the mark of
formality, to regulate them and to enforce them, there is the Law with its provisions. As the main
functions of the law are the performative and normative (Cao 2007, 13-15), it is necessary for
law to be able to communicate its norms to their addresses. This happens through language. In

1 THE NATURE OF LEGAL LANGUAGE [This material may be used ..,

http://grammar.ucsd.edu/courses/lign105/student-powerpoint/tiersma%20-%20legal%2 (accessed April 04,
2016)

everyday situations, the Law and the language of its norms, regulations and laws priests
lawyers are still somewhere near.
Internationalisation of society has brought closer contacts among foreign countries in
various aspects. Legal relationships are one of them. The European Union as well as the states
themselves produce a large amount of legislation with which the companies and individuals have
to deal. Still, an important part of legal relationships is carried out by means of private
regulations set by bi- or multi-lateral contracts by the individuals themselves (within a given
legal context). Therefore, translating these contracts becomes a big issue and the main activity of
numerous translation agencies.2
Legal language:
Legal language is not a language of everyday use by a population (unless, with a degree of
understatement we want to call lawyers a population of a kind). It is a specialized language of
legal norms and related discourse. Its distinctiveness may be seen in a number of characteristics
that differentiate it from the language of ordinary use. But, there is no universal language of law
that would be comprehensible to all languages.
Law is a system that is bound to a particular state or organization. Language of law, its
words, syntactic structure and concepts are closely related to the legal system in question. The
relationship between the language and the law is mutual: the legal system influences the nature
of the legal language and the legal language the language of the legal discourse influences
the system. The speech of lawyers is conditioned not by the law alone, but also by the prevailing
language of their environment (Mellinkoff 1963, 4). Language of law is a system- and culturebound language for special purposes. This does not mean that the language of law is completely
detached from the ordinary language. Most of its words are taken from the ordinary language.
On the other hand, legal language influences everyday speech and many of its originally
technical terms are now accepted as common.
In making generalizations about the language of law for the purpose of this thesis, the
characteristics will be drawn from those of legal Czech and legal English. The legal systems in
which these technical languages originated belong to different legal system families: English law
2 Syntactical Structure Of The Language Of Law, https://www.ukessays.com/essays/linguistics/syntacticalstructure-of-the-languag (accessed April 04, 2016)

(i.e. the law of England) is a part of the common law family whereas the Czech law is a member
of the civil law family.3
Nature of Legal Language:
Normative
The Language of law is used to impose rights and obligations; it is largely prescriptive. Laws
basic function is to regulate human behaviour and human relations. Law exists as a set of
prescriptions having the form of imperatives defining and enforcing the arrangements,
relationships, procedures and patterns of behaviour that are to be followed in a society (Cao
2007, 12, quoting Jenkins 1980, 98). Legal language serves to communicate the legal norms to
their addressees.
Performative
The speech act theory developed by J. L. Austin and J. R. Searle makes language responsible for
effects in reality. Speech is not only words but also actions. By uttering certain words, we the
facts may be changed. Legal effects and legal consequences are commonly obtained by merely
uttering certain words (Cao 2007, 14), for example in a courts judgement or in front of a clerk or
a priest during the marriage ceremony.
Technical
The question of technicality of legal language is not perceived consistently. One position argues
that there is no legal language as such and it is a part of the ordinary language. The other holds
that legal language is a technical language. If the latter view is accepted, what makes the
language of law different from other types of language use?
The chief differences may be discussed in relation to the following aspects:
1. speakers
2. stylistic differences
a)

specific vocabulary terminology issues

3 Syntactical Structure Of The Language Of Law, https://www.ukessays.com/essays/linguistics/syntacticalstructure-of-the-languag (accessed April 04, 2016).

syntactic structures4

b)
Speakers

The language of law is a language of legal norms and related discourse. The language of legal
norms is that of legislation, judicial decisions or contracts. It is said that it is the language created
and used specifically by lawyers. Although the lawyers form the core of the language-of-lawspeaking community, legislation, for example, is influenced by people with no legal educational
background, yet who adopt the legal terminology and expressions to a certain extent. Drawing on
the situation in the civil law system, the circle of the legal language users may be described as
follows:
-

The legislators (the drafters who actually write the laws; members of the parliament,
whose knowledge of all the terminology and concepts is not complete and sufficient but
who try to sound as if it was), i.e. all those who create the laws in the written form and
who have real influence on definitions of legal terms5

The lawyers (when negotiating, giving speeches in court, drafting documents etc.; and
when talking to one another)

The circle of the law language speakers in common law systems is generally the same. The major
difference is that the origins of certain terms and the evolution of the language are somewhat
different due to the different sources of law (the main body of legal rules is to be found in
judicial decisions not in legislation).
The type of speaker influences the particular style of the legal language: there is a
difference between the language of an Act of Parliament and the language used by lawyers when
talking to one another about legal matters.
Nevertheless, at times the language the lawyers use does not seem to resemble the language
of legislation at all. Lawyers seem to have developed some linguistic quirks that have little
communicative function, and serve mainly to mark them as members of the legal fraternity.

4 Syntactical Structure Of The Language Of Law, https://www.ukessays.com/essays/linguistics/syntacticalstructure-of-the-languag (accessed April 04, 2016).

5 ibdi

Style
Language of law is said to be purposive and pragmatic.Its style is therefore governed by these
characters.
There have been numerous attempts on defining style. One of them was made by Vilm
Mathesius. He defines style as individual, unifying character found to be present in any work
resulting from intentional activity. Legal style refers to the linguistic aspects of the written legal
language and also to the way in which legal problems are approached, managed and solved (Cao
2007, 22, quoting Smith 1995, 190). The style of the language of law is one of the functional
styles. It is said to be marked and sometimes described as being a sub-style and the most typical
specimen of the official style, the style of official documents .On the other hand, in the last
decades there have been authors who believed the style of the language of law to be a separate
functional style alongside other functional styles, the official, or administrative, being one of
them. The style of the language of law can be described mainly with regard to its syntactical
structure and specific vocabulary.
Syntactical Structure of the Language of Law
Vachek describes the sentences in English legal texts to be long and complex, yet clearly
built up, using various typographical devices of distributing phrases, division of the text into
parallel paragraphs and capitalizing certain crucial points of the document. When describing the
typical features of legal English, Tiersma gives the following list of typical features which
overlap with Vacheks description at some points: lengthy and complex sentences, unusual
sentence structure, wordiness and redundancy, conjoined phrases, frequent use of negation and
impersonal constructions. Cao (2007, 22) gives two general characteristics of the legal language:
impersonal constructions and extensive use of declarative sentences pronouncing rights and
obligations. Mellinkoff (1963, 285) argues that the language of law should not be different from
the ordinary language without reason. For such differences, the following rationales are usually
given: legal language is more precise, shorter, more intelligible and more durable. Of these
arguments, precision seems to be the leading feature of the language of law that should give
reason to all the other features which are sometimes said to be its vices.

These syntactical features are further discussed in relation to legal English and legal
Czech respectively.
Lexis
The most important difference that sets off legal language from ordinary language is its lexicon.
Legal language makes use of numerous words and terms that are not common in ordinary
language or carry an additional meaning different from their ordinary meaning. Legal language
utilizes vocabulary from standard language both in their ordinary meanings (the majority of legal
language vocabulary) and specialized meanings. This second class of words may create
confusion because in legal texts they may appear in both their meanings ordinary and
specialized. Knapp (1978, 17-20) distinguishes the following groups of words:
1. legal terms
2. words with specific legal meaning and specific meaning in another specialized language
3. words with both specific legal meaning and ordinary meaning
4. words having specific legal meaning, specific meaning in another specialized language as
well as ordinary meaning
5. words with neutral meaning
LEGAL LANGUAGE:
Legal English
Because of the nature of law, the language of law has developed particular linguistic features
lexical, syntactic and pragmatic to meet the demands of law and to accommodate the
idiosyncrasies of law and its applications . Legal English style and lexicon originate in various
languages: Anglo-Saxon, Latin and/or French. Legal language was originally oral; any writings
served only as a report of the oral ceremony . It took quite a long time to accept the written texts
as authoritative. Formbooks were written and their main effect was conservation of legal
language, its terminology and phraseology. Although the ritualistic and the magical has
disappeared from law, it has not disappeared from the language of law.

The main vices of legal English are said to be its wordiness and excessive use of archaic
words and constructions. In the last 50 years legal English underwent significant changes, mainly
due to the Plain English Movement6, but certain specifics persist.
Style
Legal style results from cultural and legal traditions. Its chief characteristics are impersonality,
extensive use of declarative sentences, negative and passive constructions. Mellinkoff says the
language of law has a strong tendency towards certain mannerisms such as being wordy, unclear,
pompous and dull. Legal texts tend to use number of words instead of one (e.g. annul and set
aside instead of annul; or totally null and void instead of void). Sometimes, they seem to contain
a great part of text that seems to be devoid of meaning (as Mellinkoff puts it) such as using
metaphors. Pomposity in the language of law may take many shapes especially by using words
evoking respect (e.g. solemn, supreme, wisely). Pomposity and wordiness, together with long
complex sentences and a lack of clarity of expression contribute to the dullness of the legal
language.
Interpretation And Meaning

This section discusses several ways in which legal interpretation and meaning differ from
ordinary language interpretation, and some of the reasons why.
Definitions
Definitions nowadays are normally descriptive, which means they are based on usage. In
common law countries, no one has the authority to dictate how a word ought to be used, which
would constitute a prescriptive definition. Definitions in legal language, however, are
prescriptive because here there is an institution that can dictate how a word ought to be used: the
legislature.
I call these declaratory definitions. They also occur in contracts and other legal documents.
Such definitions can promote more precise drafting by stipulating that one of several possible
meanings is intended. But they are also hazardous, because the reader may not always realize
that what seems to be an ordinary word is defined in a specific--sometimes, aberrant--way.
6

There are also incorporating definitions, which are not really definitions at all. They simply take
a large amount of text and define it as X, allowing the text to be removed from the body of the
statute and placed with the definitions. Although the practice can minimize redundancy in the
text, it can also make less transparent and harder to find.
Reference
Reference is important to the law; the law of trademarks is largely about preserving the
unambiguous reference of marks. Ambiguity of reference can also cause problems in wills. To
avoid referential ambiguity in legal documents, lawyers often use what I call declaratory
reference, declaring in a document that Garcia shall refer to Hilda Garcia, an individual residing
in San Antonio, Texas. Linguists also distinguish between referential descriptions (a specific
person or thing) and attributive descriptions (whoever meets the description). This is quite
relevant in the law of wills, where a gift of my car could be either referential--the car I now
own--or attributive (whatever car I own at death). Further, legislation is almost always written in
an attributive (thus, objective) way, applying to any person who fits a description. This can be
abused, however, as when a tax break that seems to be attributive in fact refers to a specific
person or entity.
Meaning
Legal interpretation differs in several ways from ordinary understanding. In ordinary
language, what really matters is what a speaker means by an utterance (speaker's meaning),
rather than what a word or utterance means (word or sentence meaning). Irony provides a good
example, because here the sentence meaning (I love being hit on the head by a brick) is highly
misleading. In theory, legal interpretation of private documents also focuses on the speaker's
meaning, but this is undermined by the evidentiary limitations of the parol evidence rule. With
statutory interpretation, courts now often look to the intent of the speakers (legislative intent).
Yet referring to legislative intent is controversial, especially in the theory of interpretation called
textualism, which has revived the plain meaning rule. The plain meaning rule excludes
consideration of extrinsic evidence when the meaning of a statute is plain from a reading of the
text itself. This is completely inconsistent with ordinary language interpretation, which uses any
cues it can--such as shared background knowledge or information on the circumstances of an
utterance--to determine the speaker's meaning.

But the plain meaning rule is not entirely irrational; it derives to some extent from the historic
shift from oral to written communication. We tend to interpret written texts differently from
speech. Someone who writes a text often tries to make it as autonomous as possible, so that any
information needed to interpret it is contained in the text itself. This is often necessary, because
the reader of a text may be in a very different location, at a very different time, and may know
little or nothing about the circumstances surrounding the writer. Logically enough, legal
documents are written to be very autonomous. One view of the plain meaning rule, therefore, is
that judges will assume that the drafter was successful in creating an autonomous document, so
that ideally extrinsic evidence should not be needed. At least as an initial assumption, this seems
sensible.
Another reason for legal interpretation to place less emphasis on the speaker's meaning is the
problem of collective authorship, as well as the fact that one or more of the authors may be dead
or otherwise unavailable. Furthermore, legal interpretation must deal with the problem of gaps,
when the text is silent on a particular point. In a spoken conversation, one interlocutor can ask
the other to fill the gap. With most legal documents, courts must find some other means of
deciding what to do when the text is silent. Courts thus necessarily construct meaning where
there was none before, rather than simply interpreting the text. This is sometimes difficult to
spot because courts prefer not to act in overtly authoritative ways, so they continue to speak of
interpretation while actually engaging in construction.
A final difference between legal and ordinary interpretation derives from the fact that an
interpreter must always keep in mind the rules and conventions used by the speaker or writer.
There is a symbiotic relationship between encoding and decoding language. The evidence
accumulated in this book suggests that legal writers do indeed use language and drafting
conventions that are distinct from ordinary language. An example is that normally if someone
uses synonyms, we assume she is engaging in elegant variation and that the synonymous terms
refer to the same thing. Legal drafters generally try to avoid such variation; the legal interpreter
will thus assume that the synonyms in fact refers to something different. Most students of legal
interpretation have concentrated on what courts do, but they should perhaps pay more attention
to the legal language and conventions of the drafters.

VARIATION IN LEGAL LANGUAGE

Legal Dialects
Dialects reflect linguistic variation on the basis of geography. Legal language is not a dialect,
but it does have dialects of its own in that it varies according to place. Some of this dialectal
variation results from differences in legal systems; English lawyers speak of solicitors and
barristers, a distinction not made in the United States. Elsewhere, the concepts are similar, but
words for them are different (British company law versus American corporate law). In countries
such as India, legal English is infused with many terms for indigenous legal concepts. Thus,
even though legal language is quite conservative in some senses, in other ways it again reveals
itself as a relatively flexible means of communication by readily adapting to the situation in
which it is used.
Spoken Legal Language
Legal language further varies depending on whether it is spoken or written. The most salient
characteristics of legalese--archaic vocabulary, long and convoluted sentences, use of passives
and nominalizations--are far more evident in written legal language. Written language is also
more compact and dense. Spoken legal language tends to be less formal overall. An oral
judgment by an English judge is perhaps the most formal type of spoken legal English. Oral
arguments to a court tend to be in standard English, while addressing a jury might very well be in
a regional variety of English that is aimed at identifying with the local population. As with
medieval lawyers, choice of language variety in specified domains is dictated to some extent by
tradition, but these days strategy also plays an important role.
Telegraphic Speech:

Telegraphic speech leaves out all words that could be supplied by

context; it is common in telegrams and headlines. It is often heard in the courtroom

(lawyer: Objection! Judge: Overruled), but also in some quite formal settings, as at the end of an
opinion (appeal dismissed). It again illustrates that lawyers can cut out excess verbiage when its
suits their purpose.
Legal Slang

Despite claims that their speech habits are very formal, even pompous, lawyers not
infrequently use legal slang. Slang enhances group cohesion and is often shorter (thus more
"linguistically efficient") than more formal language. Examples include rogs for interrogatories,
TRO for temporary restraining order, SLAPP suit for strategic lawsuit against public
participation,

and

idioms

like

grant

cert

for

grant

writ

of

certiorari.

Variation and Genre

There are various genres, or types, of legal writing. They illustrate again that legal language is
not monolithic, but can vary substantially depending on the situation. Pleadings, petitions,
orders, contracts, deeds and wills can be called operative legal documents because they create
and modify legal relations. They tend to use a great deal of legalese. Expository documents are
those that explain the law, including office memoranda, judicial opinions, and client letters.
They tend to be in formal but standard English, with little legalese, except that they do use many
technical terms. Especially judicial opinions have a fair amount of stylistic freedom, making use
of metaphors and sometimes even poetry. Persuasive documents include briefs to a court and
memoranda of points and authorities; their language is similar to expository documents. It is
interesting and ironic to observe that documents drafted more directly for clients (operative
documents like wills and contracts) seem to contain the most legalese, while those directed to
colleagues within the profession (expository and persuasive documents) contain relatively less.

So What Is Legal Language Exactly?

Legal language has been called an argot, a dialect, a register, a style, and even a separate
language. In fact, it is best described with the relatively new term sublanguage. A sublanguage
has its own specialized grammar, a limited subject matter, contains lexical, syntactic, and
semantic restrictions, and allows "deviant" rules of grammar that are not acceptable in the
standard language. However we describe it, legal language is a complex collection of linguistic
habits that have developed over many centuries and that lawyers have learned to use quite
strategically.
Talking Like A Lawyer

Lawyers seem to have developed some linguistic quirks that have little communicative
function, and serve mainly to mark them as members of the legal fraternity.
Pronunciation and Spelling as Markers of Group Cohesion

The odd pronunciation of defendant (with a full vowel in the last syllable, rhyming with ant)
and the spelling judgment (consistently without an e) seem to serve as a marker of group
cohesion. Ironically, when pronouncing words of Latin or Law French origin, the recent trend is
not to follow the expected traditional pronunciation of the legal profession (i.e., as though the
words were English), but rather to use the articulation taught in foreign language classes. The
reason may be that the traditional legal pronunciation sounds unsophisticated to the modern ear,
and lawyers are very concerned about appearing prestigious.

Lengthy and complex sentences

Studies show that sentences in legal language are quite a bit longer than in other styles, and also
have more embeddings, making them more complex. Sometimes there seems to be an attempt
to state an entire statute or linguistic principle in a single sentence, as illustrated by a California
law against insuring lotteries. Such a statute can easily be broken down into more digestible
pieces with no loss in content, so there is no justification for such long sentences today.
Wordiness and redundancy:

Lawyers are very prone to use wordy and redundant

phraseology, including what is sometimes called boilerplate. Lawyers also tend to use ponderous
phrases (such as at slow speed orsubsequent to) where a single word would suffice (slowly;
after). On the other hand, sometimes legal language is not overly wordy at all, but highly
compact or dense. The economic incentives and strategic motivations under which lawyers
operate seem to be significant here: when clients are paying a large fee, there is a motivation to
be verbose; when a document is written for a busy court, however, lawyers realize they have to
get to the point quickly.

Conjoined phrases

Conjoined phrases consist of words like by and and or, as in I give, devise and bequeath the
rest, residue and remainder... They have been used since Anglo-Saxon times. Conjoining words
is still extremely common in legal language. One reason for such lists of words is to be as
comprehensive as possible. They also can add emphasis. But they can lead to ambiguity
because of the rule of interpretation that every word should be given meaning and nothing
treated as surplusage. Thus, careful communication requires that lawyers use such conjoined
phrases with care.

Unusual sentence structure

Lawyers make use of unusual sentence structures, as in a proposal to effect with the Society an
assurance, which is taken from an insurance policy. Often these unusual structures result in
separating the subject from the verb, or splitting the verb complex, which can reduce
comprehension.
Negation
Legal language seems to use an inordinate amount of negation. To some extent this may result
from the tendency to regulate by prohibition; judges prefer negative injunctions, for example.
Research reveals that especially multiple negation impairs communication and should be
avoided.

Impersonal Constructions
A related characteristic of legal style is impersonal constructions. The best example is
avoidance of first and second person expression (I and you). Using the third person in statutes
does make some communicative sense (as in Sex offenders shall register with the police...)

because the statute "speaks" not only to sex offenders, but to the police and the courts; you might
therefore be inappropriate or ambiguous. Elsewhere (as in the tendency of judges to refer to
themselves as the court rather than I) it creates an impression of objectivity and authority, thus
helping to legitimate the legal system. Multi-judge panels seem less reluctant to use we, and will
even use this pronoun to refer to a decision made by their predecessors long ago. Here, the first
person

stresses

the

continuity

and

perceived

timelessness

of

the

law.

Conclusion
Many of the quirky or stylistic features of legal writing serve little or no communicative
function and could easily be dispensed with, especially because they may reduce comprehension.