The Impact of Legal English Idiosyncratic Syntax on Law Readers: Between Psycholinguistic Dilemmas and Preciseness

Abstract

The theoretical linguists’ descriptions reveal that legal English comprises a load of syntactic idiosyncrasies that are not found in any other variety of English. Those syntactic discontinuities are mainly caused by an unusual nesting of clauses without giving considerations to law readers. This might cause psycholinguistic problems to EFL law readers even though it intends to make the legal document clearer. Notwithstanding, according to some discourse analysts, those syntactic complexities are only adopted for the sake of promoting preciseness and avoiding vagueness in English legal discourse. The purpose of this study is to contrast the two views hereinabove mentioned taking into consideration the new tendency of plain English movement. The research discusses how this ebb and flow can have an impact on legal understanding and how it makes way to poor application of conventions, especially in international contexts. Law constitutes a basic element of human and social life, and English is the language of international practice. It is recommended through this paper that legal drafters need to strike a balance between adverbial insertions and the considerations to precision and clarity to ensure better law understanding, thereby improve social reality, especially in the era of globalization.