The mention of legal language tends to conjure up in the mind of the layperson ‘legalese’
– that often incomprehensible verbiage found in legal documents as well as an arcane
jargon used among attorneys. To elucidate how this ‘special dialect’ came about and how
it differs from ‘ordinary English’, researchers have turned to the language of the law as a
linguistic phenomenon in its own right, tracing its evolution and noting the peculiarities
of its vocabulary and sentence structure. In fact, one of the first scholarly publications
about law and language that I consulted was David Mellinkoff’s monumental work, The
Language of the Law, published in 1963, nearly two decades before linguists would turn
to legal language. 5
Mellinkoff was not a linguist; he was a law professor at the UCLA
School of Law, where he taught until his death in 1999. In his book he covers the
historical development of legal English, beginning with its Anglo-Saxon roots and
continuing on through the Middle English period right up to the present day, while
acknowledging along the way the contributions from Latin and French. He considers too
some of the grammatical features of this style of language as well as the social and
cultural significances. Although clearly indispensable as a source for serious research into
the language of the law, this nearly 500-page tome probably contains more information
than the casual reader may need to know.A more accessible account of the history of legal English is Peter Tiersma’s
recent book, Legal Language. 6
Tiersma too is a professor of law, but he also holds an
advanced degree in linguistics; hence, his text appeals to both linguists and law
professionals. In addition to treating the historical developments, he thoroughly explains
why legal language is so often difficult for nonlawyers to comprehend. It is full of
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wordiness, redundancy, and specialized vocabulary and it often contains lengthy,
complex, and unusual sentence structure.