Lawyers' Language: The Distinctiveness of Legal Language / Edition 1

by Alfred Phillips

Overview

An interesting examination of law as language use or discourse, this study looks at the transformation of ordinary language into a special discourse for the purposes of the legal system. It is widely accepted that legal discourse is obscure, and often the public resent the fact that access to the law of the land is obstructed by the opaqueness of legal language. This book argues that the development and maintenance of law's special language can be justified. The myth that law can be written in either plain' or ordinary' language is exploded, and the linguistic obscurity of law is traced to its necessary complexity. The notion of representation is applied to the relation that exists between legal language and ordinary language.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780700716883
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	09/12/2002
Pages:	200
Product dimensions:	5.44(w) x 8.50(h) x (d)
Lexile:	1380L (what's this?)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Alfred Phillips is a jurist, experienced in most important areas of law as a practitioner, university lecturer, journal editor and writer. He was the editor of The Journal of the Law Society of Scotland for 25 years, having founded The Conveyancing Review, which merged with The Journal of the Law Society of Scotland. He also founded and lectured on the course in Professional Skills and Professional Ethics for postgraduate students in the Faculty of Law, Glasgow University.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1. Ground-clearing 2. Critical Language Theory 3. Dworkin and strong constitutionalism 4. Rights-based law 5. Habermas and the democratic ideal 6. Conclusions