The language of law reflects the overlapping, competing and co-existing nature of legal discourse; its form both the product of its linguistic history and a response to the fluidity of legal culture. This book examines legal language as a language for special purposes, evaluating the functions and characteristics of legal language and the terminology of law. Using examples drawn from major and lesser legal languages, it examines the major legal languages themselves, beginning with Latin through German, French and English. Each chapter includes an historical overview of the growth of the language, its international use, its coherence in the various countries using it and its relationship to cognate legal languages. Where relevant, the characteristics of legal cultures are described to explain the features of the legal language. The work will be a valuable resource for students, researchers and practitioners in the areas of comparative law, legal theory, semiotics, and linguistics.
Author(s): Heikki E. S. Mattila
Publisher: Ashgate
Year: 2006
Language: English
Pages: 364
Contents......Page 6
Foreword......Page 12
Foreword to the Finnish Original......Page 14
PART 1: GENERAL INTRODUCTION......Page 18
1 The Concept of Legal Language......Page 20
2 Genres of Legal Language......Page 21
3 Legal Linguistics as a Discipline......Page 23
4 The Importance of Legal-linguistic Knowledge......Page 36
5 Structure and Content of this Book......Page 38
PART 2: LEGAL LANGUAGE AS A LANGUAGE FOR SPECIAL PURPOSES......Page 46
2 Achieving Justice......Page 48
3 Transmission of Legal Messages......Page 50
4 Strengthening the Authority of the Law......Page 56
5 Strengthening Lawyers’ Team Spirit......Page 69
6 Linguistic Policy......Page 70
7 The Cultural Task of Legal Language......Page 75
1 Precision......Page 82
2 Information (Over)load......Page 89
3 Universality and Aloofness......Page 90
4 Systemic Character......Page 94
5 Structure and Formalism in Legal Texts......Page 98
6 Frequency of Initialisations and Acronyms......Page 105
7 Sentence Complexity and Diversity of Language Elements......Page 107
8 Archaism and Solemnity......Page 109
9 Proper Use of Legal Language......Page 113
1 Legal Concepts......Page 122
2 Characteristics of Legal Terminology......Page 125
3 Formation of Legal Terminology......Page 129
PART 3: THE MAJOR LEGAL LANGUAGES......Page 140
1 The Importance of Roman Law......Page 142
2 History of Legal Latin......Page 143
3 Latin in Modern Legal Languages......Page 153
4 The Communication Value of Legal Latin......Page 167
5 Dictionaries of Legal Latin......Page 174
1 History of Legal German......Page 176
2 Characteristics of Legal German......Page 190
3 International Importance of Legal German......Page 196
1 History of Legal French......Page 204
2 Characteristics of Legal French......Page 216
3 International Position Today......Page 228
1 The Common Law System......Page 238
2 Development of Legal English......Page 242
3 Characteristics of Legal English......Page 245
4 Legal English as a Global Language......Page 257
PART 4: CONCLUSION......Page 272
1 Changes in Legal-linguistic Dominance in the International Arena......Page 274
2 Terminological Interaction between Legal Languages......Page 276
3 Problems of Lexical Comprehension......Page 278
4 The Need for Jurilinguistic Research on Legal Institutions and Concepts......Page 282
Alphabetic Bibliography......Page 286
Systematic Bibliography......Page 312
Foreign Terms and Expressions......Page 322
Index......Page 334
A......Page 335
B......Page 336
C......Page 337
D......Page 341
E......Page 342
G......Page 344
H......Page 345
I......Page 346
L......Page 348
M......Page 351
N......Page 352
O......Page 353
P......Page 354
R......Page 356
S......Page 357
T......Page 360
V......Page 362
Y......Page 363
