Considering legal English: Consensus and complications

Griffin, David 2024. Considering legal English: Consensus and complications. The International Journal of Speech Language and the Law 31 (1) , pp. 77-98. 10.1558/ijsll.27418 Item availability restricted.

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Abstract

This article considers the nature of legal English and reviews the literature which is generally relied upon for its linguistic description. While agreeing that legal English can properly be considered a register, it suggests that the seeming consensus in the literature regarding the specific differences between it and other varieties of English rests upon much shakier ground than is generally acknowledged. After identifying the features of legal English which are generally said to most strongly define it as a register, this article presents the results of a small pilot study comparing the presence of those features in a little-studied legal genre to their presence in the written subcorpora of the Corpus of Contemporary American English. This article concludes with several suggestions for refining the current consensus and suggests a path towards a more empirically grounded description of legal English as a register.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Published Online
Status:	Published
Schools:	English, Communication and Philosophy
Publisher:	Equinox Publishing
ISSN:	1748-8885
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	16 August 2024
Date of Acceptance:	30 May 2024
Last Modified:	07 Nov 2024 22:00
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/171436

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