LANGUAGE OF LAW

• Language


  A tool to interact or communicate, a means to convey thoughts, ideas, concepts, or feelings
• Language functions


  • Can be viewed from different angles, such as speakers, listeners, topics, codes, and conversation purpose
• Role of language as a communication tool


  • Language as a tool to interact with others
  • Language reflects a person's level of education
  • Indicates authority
  • As the force of law
  • Attract the customer
  • Indicates a person's social standing
• Forensic linguistics


  The application of linguistics to legal issues
• Areas of language and the law

  • Statutory language, courtroom discourse, translation, and interpretation in multilingual contexts
  • Language and the criminal justice system, including police interviews, undercover sting operations, courtroom testimony, and confessions
  • Language evidence in civil cases such as trademarks, contracts, copyright, discrimination, and product warning labels
  • Other legal cases in which language is often the primary evidence, such as authorship analysis and speaker identification
• Performative


  Words are not only something we use to say things, we also use them to do things
• Normative


  The language of law derives from the fact that law has the basic function in society of guiding human behavior and regulating human relations
• Technical


  Legal language often operates in a context that makes legal terms have meanings different from those they bear in non-legal contexts of use
• The linguistic approach perceives the law as a collection of linguistic acts (utterances) called norms or provisions
• Linguistically oriented legal research distinguishes between two basic types of the legal language: a language of legal texts (law-making instruments), and a language of legal practice and legal science
• Approaches to the law in contemporary legal science

  • Axiological
  • Psychological
  • Sociological
• Axiological approach


  Perceives the law as an expression of values which usually are regarded as prior and independent from the law in their existence
• Sociological approach


  Conceives of the law as a social phenomenon, understanding the law as e.g. acts of social agents (social practices), social relations or social institutions
• Psychological approach


  Regards the law as a psychological phenomenon, existing first of all in human beings' minds
• Forensic linguistics


  The use of linguistic evidence in the judicial process, usually in the form of expert evidence from a linguist
• Legal language


  A type of register, a variety of language appropriate to the legal situations of use
• Linguistic difficulties in legal languages arise from the differences found in the different legal cultures and legal systems
• Features of legal language

  • Sentences often have peculiar structures
  • Punctuation is used insufficiently
  • Foreign phrases are sometimes used instead of ordinary phrases
  • Unusual pronouns are employed
  • Unusual set phrases are to be found
  • Technical vocabulary
  • Unusual and archaic words
  • Impersonal constructions
  • Use of modal like shall
  • Multiple negation
  • Long and complex sentences
  • Poor organization
• Legal lexicon is full of archaic words, formal and ritualistic usage, word strings, common words with uncommon meanings and words of over-precision
• Complex structures, passive voice, multiple negations and prepositional phrases are extensively used in legal language
• Legal writing is characterized by an impersonal style, with the extensive use of declarative sentences pronouncing rights and obligations
• The prominent feature of legal style is very long sentences. The law is always phrased in an impersonal manner so as to address several audiences at once
• Another feature is the flexible or vague language (language that talks about something without directly saying what it is). Lawyers both try to be as precise as possible and use general, vague and flexible language
• In both legal languages there are many words that have a legal meaning very different from their ordinary meanings
• 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)
• With statutory interpretation, courts often look to the intent of the speakers (legislative intent)
• There is a symbiotic relationship between encoding and decoding language. Legal writers do indeed use language and drafting conventions that are distinct from ordinary language
• Remedy


  A way of solving a problem, whereby breach of a right is prevented or redress is given
• Kinds of legal writing

  • Academic legal writing as in law journals
  • Judicial legal writing as in court judgments
  • Legislative legal writing as in laws, regulations, contracts, and treaties
  • Interaction between lay people and legal professionals on legal themes
• Language in the civil law tradition
• The influence of French
• Language and the common law
• Tiersma P.M. & Solan L.M. (2012): 'The Oxford Handbook of Language and Law. Oxford University Press.'