| 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 |
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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: | 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: | 03 Sep 2026 01:45 |
| URI: | https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/171436 |
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