The language of legal documents

The content
 Characteristics of legal English
 Early legal documents form and characteristics
 Grammatical characteristics
 Vocabulary
 Conclusions
 There are involved different activities, statutes, contracts,
agreements
 The legal document says exactly what the author wants to

say.
 There are no opportunities for misinterpretation, very clear.
 The least communicative, only the direct meaning
 Very formal language
 Very precise terms
 Very difficult to be understood
Legal English
 Legal language is not spontaneous, it is very well thought of.
 Characterized by linguistic formula or collections of such

formula
 Form books - books with established formula used in the

legal documents
 The language far removed from informal spontaneous

conversation
 The complexities of legal English are unlike normal discourse,

it is not easy to be understood even by experts.

 The language largely unspeakable at first sight.
 Extreme linguistic conservatism, not accepting changes.
 The principle: What has been tested and found adequate is

best not altered.

 Gives way to both French and Latin.
Early legal documents
 In the form of a solid block
 No patterns of spacing or indentation to indicate either the

sections of the document or the relations between them

 Unbroken format
 Extremely difficult for a layman
 The sentences were long: an entire document in the form of a

single sentence
 The punctuation almost completely absent
 When legal documents came to be printed, the idea was the same
 Legal English should have visual coherence interrupted as little as

possible.
 Even actually:

• documents without paragraph division

• long, thinly punctuated sentences are the rule rather than the

exception
 Visual arrangement attempting to reflect the logical progression of

ideas was adopted along with appropriate lettering and numbering

of sections and subsections.
 Clear logical sequence is essential
 Blocks of print – to arrange the sections the content is organized, the
relationship between them and their relative importance
 The use of Gothic characters and the capitals for the words and phrases
 Graphetic and graphological means to point more effectively the meaning
of the whole document
 The use of numbers to identify the sections
 Initial capitalization to increase the importance, to dignify certain lexical
items
 Nowadays, usefulness of punctuation as a guide to grammatical structure
 Only a limited number of punctuation marks: final periods, colon
Grammar
 Documents have many sentences.
 Document with only one long sentence, sentence connectors

can be considered only for that part they play in joining

together clauses.
 Sentences tend to be extremely long.
 There are complex sentences capable of standing alone, being

self-contained units.
 Legal sentences are, almost without exception, complex.
 Personal pronouns he, she, it, they are rarely used.
 Personal pronoun I is not used.
 The verb do substitute is scarcely used in order to avoid ambiguity.
 Repetitiveness to avoid ambiguity and confusion
 Omission of “it” generally, only in constructions like “It is agreed as
follows”.
 Complete major sentences are present.
 Minor sentences are lacking.
 Most of the sentences in the form of the sentences
 No questions
 Only some occasional commands
 The frequency of adverbial element is high.
 Adverbials tend to be at the beginning of the sentence, but

not confined only to that.

 Finite and non finite clauses are likely to contain adverbials.
 Adverbials are put in a positions which seem unusual by more

normal standards.
 The adverbial elements are very often coordinated.
 Coordination at all levels and all kinds of structures is very

common.
 Written legal English – highly nominal
 Nominal group structures are many
 Verbal groups are relatively few
 Post modification in the nominal group
 The use of non-finite clauses
 Adjectives: splendid, wise, disgusting, happy are less frequent,
not allowed to express emotions
 Intensifying adverbs: very, rather are completely absent
 The construction: modal auxiliary (usu. shall) + be + past
participle
Vocabulary
 The range of vocabulary is wide
 “Terms of art” – those words and phrases about whose

meaning lawyers have decided there can be no argument:

alibi, bail, defendant, plaintiff, appeal, liable, etc. They mean
the same thing to all lawyers.
 There is no consolidated list of such terms, they are in

legislation, judgments, etc.

 Archaic words and phrases used only by lawyers, they add to the
formality of the language
 An adverbial word or phrase: hereto, hereon, hereunder, thereof
 Synonyms are coordinated usually in pairs: able and willing,

terms and conditions, made and signed

 Loan words
 French element extremely large: proposal, effect, society, duly,

signed, agreeing, etc.

 A large number of terms coming directly from Latin: basis, table,

declaration, registered, etc.

Conclusions
 Formal language
 Precise language
 Extreme conservatism
 However, legal language has changed, even if slowly. Changes

in the fashion of drafting documents. Changes in the law itself

 Loan words
 Nowadays the language in legal documents is considerably

simpler.