The Białystok Legal English Centre (BLEC) is holding its sixth international conference: Language and Law – Traditions, Trends and Perspectives, to take place at the Faculty of Law, University of Białystok, Poland from 1 to 2 June 2023.
Tag Archives: legal language
Monday smile – With all due respect
The English Law Society’s Gazette recently published news of some new research on legal language. The article notes that “‘With respect’ can be one of the rudest phrases in the English language.
The Gazette adds: “Now it’s official, thanks to research by linguistic academics. Their source is the language of the appellate courts, in particular transcripts of the Supreme Court hearings in R v Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union.”
Book publication – Law, Language and the Courtroom
Law, Language and the Courtroom
- Legal Linguistics and the Discourse of Judges, edited by Stanislaw Gozdz Roszkowski and Gianluca Pontrandolfo, explores the language of judges. It is concerned with understanding how language works in judicial contexts. Continue reading
Special journal issue on EU Legal Culture and Translation (open access)
A special issue of the International Journal of Language & Law (JLL) has just been published (volume 7, 2018), on the subject of EU legal culture and translation, guest edited by Vilelmini Sosoni and Lucja Biel.
JLL is an open-access, double-blind, peer-reviewed e-journal which offers a forum for research on the interdependence of language and law in all of its facets, from theoretical approaches to practical problems. The journal is entirely free of charge to authors and readers, and publishes content under a CC-BY license.
Language training handbooks for judicial cooperation
The European Judicial Training Network (EJTN) has produced, with the support of the European Union, a number of great handbooks on legal language, aimed at judicial cooperation across the Member States.
They are free to download, and contain introductions about vocabulary and syntax, summaries of points of law, and exercises for learners on each area, with a glossary and answer key.
I think they may be *very* useful for translators, lawyers working internationally, and many others, in addition to the judges for whom they were originally intended.
Book publication – 4th Edition of A Manual of Style for Contract Drafting
Delighted to inform you that the 4th edition of A Manual of Style for Contract Drafting has recently been published. The author, Ken Adams, is a good and longstanding friend of this blog (e.g., guest posts here and here).
It is the only authoritative guide to the building blocks of contract language, and is in widespread use throughout the legal profession. The first edition was published by the American Bar Association in 2004.
Book publication – Phraseology in Legal and Institutional Settings
I’m happy to announce today the recent publication by Routledge of Phraseology in Legal and Institutional Settings – A Corpus-based Interdisciplinary Perspective, edited by Stanislaw Goźdź-Roszkowski and Gianluca Pontrandolfo.
The volume is intended to be a resource for linguists interested in phraseology as well as lawyers and legal scholars, translators, lexicographers, terminologists and students who wish to pursue research in the area.
Conference – The Syntax of Justice: Law, Language, Access & Exclusion
A conference entitled “The Syntax of Justice: Law, Language, Access & Exclusion” is being held from 30-31 March 2017 at Northeastern University School of Law, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
Dysfunction in contract drafting
Last week I attended a debate entitled “Dysfunction in Contract Drafting: Are the Courts, Law Firms, and Company Law Departments Stuck in a Rut?“.
I’m certain that this topic will resonate with many readers 😉 so this post collects together various related links.
Symposium – Why is legal language so complicated? (London, UK)
On 29 June 2016, the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies in London (UK), in association with the University of Palermo, Sicily, Dipartimento di Studi Europei e dell’integrazione internazionale (DEMS), offers a symposium entitled “Why is legal language so complicated? Legislative drafters and linguists compare notes“.
From Words to Deeds: translation & the law 
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