Lexical features of legal language refer to the characteristics of legal language on a word level, examining the levels of change that the legal vocabulary is going through. 1.Capitalization It is observed in most of English legal texts that, particularly legal contracts, the first letter of each party involved in the contract is written in capital letter. However, as legal language always tends to be definite, instead of using conjuctions, there is a big place for repeating the same parties mentioned in the legal text. Not only the first letter of parties of contract that is written in capital letter, but also names of organizations, laws, resolutions…etc are meant to be capitalized. Chen and Yun think that capitalization aims to draw …show more content…
As legal language tends to be crucial, formal words must take the place of colloquial words that are used in the most local domains. El-Farahaty believes that formality of legal English is somehow related to the process of borrowing Latin terms which are of a high formality (El-farahaty,2015,p.48). Moreover, Chen and Yun draw on formality in legal English by pointing out that “in order to demonstrates authority, its language should be formal, precise, accurate and free from colloquial words or expressions, personal feelings and biased opinions” (chen&yun,2014,p.2). In this sense, it could be observed that the use of “shall” in legal documents supports the formality of the whole text and highlights the authority that legal language tends to express. On that account, formality of legal languages requires a specific type of translator who enjoys this sense of being serious, and obtains a rich dictionary of formal words and …show more content…
It could argued that the use of synonymous words in the English legal language helps to affirm the reader’s understanding of what he reads. Zhang explains that most of the synonymous words are getting together by some connectors such as “or” or “and”, and that what most highlights this lexical feature is that it highlights the “preciseness” and the “exactness” of the whole legal document. (Zhang, 2014,p.60). In that sense, Stanojevic lists some example of legal English synonymous words such as “assign-transfer”, “breach-violation”, “default-failure”, “contract-agreement”. (Stanjevic, 2011,
"One will not be able to exclude, as Austin wishes, the 'non-serious', the oratio obliqua from 'ordinary language'." Jacques Derrida (1)
Baron, Dennis. The. The English Language Amendment: Backgrounds And Prospects. 1988. The 'Secondary' of the 'Secon ERIC. Web.
The English legal system is complex and there are many ways in which it can be influenced, this essay will explore some of the different, more obvious ways the law can be changed and what this shows in relation to the quote above. First the essay will discuss the different ways the law can be created and changed and who enables and controls those changes, with my primary examples being the common law and legislation for the judicracy and Parliament respectively, then the essay will cover to what extent these powers enable the judicracy to change and create law in relation to Parliament and if it could be discribed as "opportunistic and piecemeal".
Having evaluated the current state of English contract law, mainly made up of piecemeal solutions, it can be seen that despite being satisfactory and doing its job, there still remain gaps within the law of contract where unfairness is not dealt with. Moreover, due to the ad hoc nature of those piecemeal solutions, the latter have often produced inconsistent justice and have manifested cases of unfairness. Hence, “a relatively small number of respected Justices have endeavored to draw attention to the fact that the application of a general principle might be useful and even necessary in English law.”
In contrary to its contemporary antagonist philosophical schools, who advocate the practices of humanness and the rightness and set ideal of the past, the Legalists, in their complete rejection of the traditional ethics, embraces the efficacy of political power and uphold a society of laws and punishments. As the old feudal states decayed and the smoke of endemic warfare suffused, the need for a more rational government that can afford greater centralized power so as to strengthen a state against its rival increased substantially among the Warring States. Such a rising urge necessitated the emergence of the Legalists and further predetermined the Legalists’ inherent nature – realistic, totalitarian and problem-solving – which, with the realization of its significance and duty in the stream of history, finds its hegemonic character as well.
Within the Justice system, forensic linguistics, as a fairly new field of forensics, is still shrouded in skepticism and doubt over the legitimacy of the evidence provided by forensic linguists. However, as Doctor Robert Andrew Leonard says, “to understand law, one must understand language,” supporting the foundation of forensic linguistics, which is based in language (Leonard). Even in its ‘infancy,’ forensic linguistics has proven its reliability in court through its contribution of vital evidence in the execution of cases and the conviction of guilty parties. One case that forensic linguistics was essential in establishing a verdict, despite its newly formed field, was the case of Bill Payne and Billie Jean Hayworth. The couple was murdered
Since the beginning of recorded history there have been written laws, from Hammurabi’s code in ancient Mesopotamia, all the way to modern day, with nearly all civilizations in between having some form of legislature. In the case of societies without a form of written code, law is based on the status quo: Unspoken and unwritten rules that all members of society are expected to know based upon common morals and beliefs. Even in the United States, with so many written laws, society is still governed nearly entirely by the status quo. Societal order is maintained within the United States, as well as any other civilization, through these nuanced rules and the consequences that come with breaking them.
After analyzing the discourse community of law and the detailed process lawyers take in order to write an effective appeals brief, one can see that lawyers have a very specific and unique way of communicating that includes certain jargon unfamiliar and possibly incomprehensible to the general public. Although writing an appeal brief is only one aspect of many that government prosecuting attorneys such as Kenny Elser face in their jobs on a daily basis, it is also a very necessary job because not only is it used by a single discourse community in the law profession but utilized by the discourse community of law as a whole.
Cerjak ,The English Journal, Vol. 76, No. 5 (Sep., 1987), pp. 55-57 Published by: National Council of Teachers of English
HILLIARD, J. And O’SULLIVAN, J. (2012) The Law of Contract [Online] 5th Ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Available from - http://books.google.co.uk/ [Accessed: 2nd January 2014]
The English legal system is ostensibly embedded on a foundation of a ‘high degree of certainty with adaptability’ based on a steady ‘mode’ of legal reasoning. This rests on four propositions
To start with, we may not live in England, but the language we speak is supposed to be English. So, one would think that a person would have no problem speaking this language at the workplace unless the job calls for a different language, This is not so. Countless people have challenged this policy of several different companies and this is what I will be discussing, in English. First, most of the workers speak English, maybe not as a primary language, but speak it to the best of their ability. This policy, to speak only English at the workplace, was completely and totally law-abiding since all the employees spoke English. Now, the employer did not say they could not speak Spanish during their break times. Only that while they were working, they were to speak English. This problem happens a lot in the Army because Hispanics' make up a considerable part of our Army. This problem should not come up though, because it is the United States Army. The US speaks English as its primary language. In the Army however, we can make a correction because if it is not directly related to the job, it should not be happening. It still does however, because it has become commonplace. Second, many employees speak Spanish and English, so these employees are bilingual.
United Kingdom is a country with a distinctive set of legal system. It is fairly different from other countries having civil law based legal systems. The legal system in the United Kingdom consists of various sources of law, where other civil law based countries rely only on a written set of law. European influences on the English Legal System came much later in near decades. This essay will aim to examine the development of the English Legal System by reviewing applications of various sources of law in the English Legal System furthermore to discuss the recent European influences on the law of England.
In general, Translation is “an operation on languages: a process of substituting a text in one language for a text in another”. Documentary translation is regarded as an act of communication which tackles legal translation. Legal translation is a special type of an act of communication which takes place “in the mechanism of the law”. Only professional translators specialize in legal translation because legal translation is the foundations of social relationship as marriage, contract, agreements and civil rights such as wills and inheritance. Moreover, when translating a text within the field of law, the translator should keep the following in mind. The legal system of the source text (ST) is structured in a way that suits that culture and this reflected in the legal language similarly to the target language (TT). The general characteristic features of English and Arabic legal translation are lexical,
One of the most distinctive features in English documentary language is the use of Latin terms that have fixed translations in Arabic. Mainly, Latin affected English law because of the Roman church authority over Europe (Bouharaoui, 2008). Bouharaoui (2008) adds that the Roman law had much power because of its coherent system. Usually, in translation into Arabic, such terms may be used as fixed ones. Examples on such terms are res judicata that is translated into الأمر المقضي به and actus reus that is translated into الفعل