1. Languages for Specific Purposes and Legal English
LANGUAGE AND LAW
Languages for Specific Purposes and Legal English

2. Preview Languages for specific purposes Legal language
Characteristics of legal English
Examples: Act of Settlement (1700); The Succession to the Crown Act (2013)
History of English
Sources and development of legal English

3. Lead-in Is legal language difficult? Why?
Is legal language used only for communication between legal professionals?
Should ordinary citizens be able to understand legal language? Why?
What are the major legal text types (genres)?

4. Lead-in What are langauges for specific purposes?
When did they develop and why?
How does legal English differ from general English?
What are the special characteristics of legal English?

5. Languages for Specific Purposes (LSP)
Developmet of science and technology after World War II
Approach to language teaching addressing specific needs of professional learners
Also studies a type of language used by members of a particular profession, concentrating on its genres, stylistic features and technical terms

6. Legal language
Based on ordinary language, but has a number of special features

7. Differences between legal language and other LSPs
Legal language – very old; retains many features that have disappeared from ordinary language; influence of Latin
Not only for internal professional communication; plain language movements
Terms from other professional languages

8. Characteristics of Legal English
Special legal terms (damages, injunction, tort)
Archaisms (aforesaid, forthwith, hereafter, herein)
Borrowings from other languages: Latin (corpus delicti, actus reus, mens rea, obiter dicta, ratio decidendi, stare decisis); French: contract, court, judge, judgment, jury, marriage, money, prison, property, tort), French suffixes: employ-er, employ-ee)
Specific collocations (fair trial, reach a verdict); phrasal verbs (put down a deposit, write down a debt)

9. Characteristics of Legal English
Ordinary words with a special legal meaning (construction, satisfy, consideration)
Legal doublets (null and void, last will and testament)
Uncommon pro-forms (the same, the said, the aforementioned)
Syntactic complexity (long, complex sentences)

10. Characteristics of Legal English
Nominalisation (nouns used instead of verbs for actions or processes)
Passivization
Impersonality (3rd person; ‘the Contractor’; ‘the Lender’
Multiple negation (That is the kind of accident, which ordinarily does not occur in the absence of someone’s negligence = It is the kind of accident, which occurs when someone is negligent)

11. Legal English: Modal Verbs
Shall – the legal imperative; obligation
Shall not – prohibition
Must – procedural obligation
Should = ‘it is recommended’
May – permissions and authorizations
May not – cancellation of a permission or exception to a general permission

12. Complete the following table
Characteristics of Legal English
Examples

13. Decide whether the following statements are true or false
Term
Meaning
True
False
collocation
doublet
Modal verb
Pro-form
synonym
syntax

14. Act of Settlement (1700)
Provided always and it is hereby enacted That all and every Person and Persons who shall or may take or inherit the said Crown by vertue of the Limitation of this present Act and is are or shall be reconciled to or shall hold Communion with the See or Church of Rome or shall profess the Popish Religion…shall be subject to such Incapacities as in such Case or Cases are by the said recited Act provided enacted and established And that every King and Queen of this Realm who shall come to and succeed in the Imperiall Crown of this Kingom by vertue of this Act shall have the Coronation Oath administered to him her or them at their respective Coronations according to the Act of Parliament made in the First Year of the Reign of His Majesty and the said late Queen Mary intitulated An Act for establishing the Coronation Oath and shall make subscribe and repeat the Declaration in the Act first above recited mentioned or referred to in the Manner and Form thereby prescribed.

15. The Succession to the Crown Act 2013
An Act to make succession to the Crown not depend on gender; to make provision about Royal Marriages; and for connected purposes.
[25th April 2013]
Be it enacted by the Queen’s most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:—

16. The Succession to the Crown Act 2013
1 Succession to the Crown not to depend on gender
In determining the succession to the Crown, the gender of a person born after 28 October 2011 does not give that person, or that person’s descendants, precedence over any other person (whenever born).
2 Removal of disqualification arising from marriage to a Roman Catholic
(1)A person is not disqualified from succeeding to the Crown or from possessing it as a result of marrying a person of the Roman Catholic faith.
(2)Subsection (1) applies in relation to marriages occurring before the time of the coming into force of this section where the person concerned is alive at that time (as well as in relation to marriages occurring after that time).

17. Research
Find a recent judgment of the Supreme Court of the UK ( and compare its structure and style to that of a recent judgment of the Supreme Court of the Republic of Croatia (

18. History of English
Who were the earliest inhabitants of the British Isles?
Who invaded te British isles in different periods?
What languages were spoken by the invadors?

19. A short history of the English languageAD
Old English
Angles, Saxons, Jutes
Viking invasions
Anglo-Saxon
Latin
Old Norse AD
Middle English
Norman conquest
Norman French
1500-
Modern English
Colonial expansion
The rise of English as an international language

20. Assignment
Write a summary of the major periods in the history of the English language explaining the influence of other languages in different periods.

21. Lead-in Why was French important in the history of English?
When was the Statute of Pleading enacted and why was it important?
Which areas of law remained relatively free of French-based terminology? Why?

22. Sources of Legal English
Impact of Latin and French
Following the Norman conquest in 1066, French became the language of the ruling classes in England
French – the language of legal proceedings for almost 300 years
1356 the Statute of Pleading – all court proceedings should be in English, but recorded in Latin
1400 English wills
Before 1300 statutes were written in Latin, in French until 1485, in English from 1489

23. What is the origin of words in the following sentence (Latin/French/English)
„Neither party shall be liable to the other for failure to perform or delay in the performance of its obligations caused by any circumstances beyond its reasonable control.”

24. Research
Prepare a presentation on a chosen period in the history of legal English, focusig on the influence of other languages
Prepare a presentation about the characteristics of legal English
Prepare a presentation about the characteristics of legal Croatian