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Legal English has a set of unique characteristics which make it difficult to learn
even for native speakers of the language. Although it does share some characteristics
with other specialised languages, such as lexical repetition or noun
compounds, it also shows certain features that need getting familiar with, since
they may be prove to be particularly tricky.
However, there are many more: without prejudice to, for the purposes of, to the
extent that, on account of, in view of, etc.
Below are some examples of these complex prepositional phrases in context:
• Member States shall adopt all necessary measures for the automatic
granting of authorisations required for the pursuit of any employment
referred to in Articles 2 and 3. Conditions for granting such authorisations
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2. Binomial/multinomial expressions
They are “a sequence of two or more words or phrases belonging to the same
grammatical category having some semantic relationship and joined by some
syntactic device such as and or or” Bhatia (1993:108). Colloquially they are called:
- “couplets” (or “doublets”) when they consist of two elements, such as “advice and
consent”, “under or in accordance with”, “wholly and exclusively”;
- “triplets” when they include three items, as in “rest, residue and remainder” or
“give, devise and bequeath”.
As can be seen in the examples below, they usually combine a native English word
with another term of French or Latin origin whose meaning is very similar to or, in
many cases the same as the first word’s meaning:
They are “an adverbial word of place to which a preposition-like word has been
suffixed” (Crystal & Davy 1969:207-208). Most compound prepositions and
adverbs could be replaced by more simple expressions, but these archaisms are
very frequent in legal English.
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• This lease will be valid from one year from this date and will be renewed
yearly thereafter.
• The member States of the Council of Europe and the other Signatories
hereto.
The register of legal English (degree of formality) is very high, probably one of
the most formal in all special languages. It may be detected in features like
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- “issue” may mean both “offspring”, “an important matter” or simply “a case”;
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(c) the state of peace, freedom from confused or unruly behavior, and
respect for law or proper authority (as in “law and order”);
“on the payment to the owner of the total amount of any instalments
then remaining unpaid of the rent hereinbefore reserved and agreed to
be paid and the further sum of ten shillings (...)”.
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8. Connectives
In legal English connectives are scarcely used. Sentences tend to come one after
the other without particles such as “meanwhile”, “since”, “moreover”,
“furthermore”, etc., which makes reading abrupt.
The only connectives widely used are those which are specifically legal:
“notwithstanding”, “subject to”, “provided”, “whilst”, “where”, “whereas”, etc.
Legal English has very long and complex sentences, with multiple levels of
subordination and embedding, something very seldom found in general English,
which generally shows a clear tendency towards coordination. According to Crystal
& Davy (1969:201), “(...) sentences tend to be extremely long. It is a characteristic
legal habit to conflate, by means of an array of subordinating devices, sections of
language which would elsewhere be much more likely to appear as separate
sentences”.
Below is an example:
• Member States shall ensure that when a suspected or accused person has
been subject to questioning or hearings by an investigative or judicial
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It refers to the insertion of clauses that restrict the meaning of the main clause.
It occurs “if two elements of the same phrase (e.g. a noun phrase), which would
normally be situated beside each other in the sentence structure, are formally
separated by another expression or clause being inserted in between them. As a
result of this, the two elements, which are both semantically and structurally
related, may end up distanced from each other in the structure of the sentence and
the close semantic or structural relation between them may become less obvious”
(Mackinlay, http://www.esp-
world.info/Articles_7/Syntactic%20DiscontLegal.htm).
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In legal texts, as in most specialised texts, style is generally not a priority, which
means that the clarity of the contents takes precedence over the form of the text.
Thus, attention is generally not paid to punctuation, which may be misplaced or
absent altogether. This implies a very careful and attentive reading of the text by
the recipient.
In legal texts passive structures are very frequent because in most cases the core
of the message is the action/fact itself or its result, not the agent of the action.
Some passive structures may be somewhat complex, such as the one cited by
Alcaraz Varó (1994:82):
The case was clear authority for the proposition that regard must
be had to the particular circumstances in which the rent payments
were made.
This is the term used by Berk-Seligson (1990) to refer to the omission of the
relative pronoun and the corresponding verb, as in “all the rights and remedies
[which are] available to a secured party”.
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13. Impersonality
Legal texts tend to be impersonal, given the fact that what matters is not so
much who writes the text but what the text itself says.
One of the curiosities of some legal texts is the roundabout way in which
negative structures are sometimes formed. There seems to a certain reluctance to
use the particle “not”, which is reflected in the alternative use of particles with
negative meaning, such as never, unless, except, fail to etc., or terms with a
negative prefix such as un- (“unauthorised”, “undesirable”), il- (“illegal”), im-
(“impossible”), ir- (“irregular”), in- (“incomplete”), dis- (“discontinue”,
“dissatisfied”), etc. Let us see a few examples:
• Each Member State shall ensure that within its territory one or more
deposit-guarantee schemes are introduced and officially recognized.
Except in the circumstances envisaged in the second subparagraph and in
paragraph 4, no credit institution authorized in that Member State
pursuant to Article 3 of Directive 77/780/EEC may take deposits unless it
is a member of such a scheme.
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• The requesting Party shall also provide without delays all complementary
information requested by the requested Party and which is necessary for
the implementation of and the follow up to the provisional measures.
The use of the subjunctive has practically disappeared from colloquial English,
where it is used only in certain set phrases 1. It has been gradually replaced by other
alternative options, such as putting the verb in the present or the past, or putting in
“should”, as follows:
1
God save the Queen, God help you, So be it, God bless you, Heaven forbid.
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The use of the subjunctive becomes even more complicated when it involves a
passive structure, a negative structure or a continuous tense, as in the following
examples:
2
Some exceptional cases: “The present subjunctive is occasionally found in clauses expressing a
condition, such as If I be found guilty... (more common is am or should be). This usage is mostly old-
fashioned or excessively formal, although it is found in some common fixed expressions such as if
need be. Perhaps somewhat more common is the use after whether in the sense of "no matter
whether": Whether they be friend or foe, we shall give them shelter. Analogous uses are occasionally
found after other conjunctions, such as unless (and possibly until), whoever, wherever, etc.: I shall
not do it unless I be instructed; Whoever he be, he shall not go unpunished.” Source: Wikipedia,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_subjunctive
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Each Party may provide that the only prerequisite is that the
conduct would have constituted a predicate offence had it occurred
domestically.
Patients should enjoy a guarantee of assumption of the costs of that
healthcare at least at the level as would be provided for the same
healthcare, had it been provided in the Member State of affiliation.
Given the nature of the EU, collective nouns are used extremely frequently:
“Commission”, “Committee”, “Council”, etc. The same happens in general English
with nouns such as “hospital”, “police”, “family”, “company”, “staff”, etc.
Collective nouns may be seen either as a single unit made up of people or as just
a group of people. If they are seen as a group, then the verb is in the singular; if
they are seen as a number of people, the verb is in the plural.
In British English these nouns can have a singular or a plural verb: “the team are
playing well”, “the Hospital are planning a strike”, “the government is
implementing the measure” “Arsenal are playing tonight”. However, there seems to
be a marked tendency towards the plural form. With “police”, the singular in
British English is rarely used.
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