Analysis Of Sine Qua Non: The Essential Legal Writing Style
Sine Qua Non: The Essential Legal Writing Style and Its Translation
Introduction
Legal writing style has long been regarded as obscure and antiquated. Therefore, as noted by Butt and Castle (2006), radical reformers like Jeremy Bentham advocate plain legal language, believing that such a movement can make everybody comprehend legal documents. In his article, Fung (1999) argues that the unintelligibility of law is primarily due to the drafting style, which can be totally avoided and should be completely removed, and that law can be composed in plainer English. Fung (1999) also states that such a move toward plain English in the source text will naturally produce a clear and reader-friendly target text in Chinese. This essay will conduct a critique on the paper entitled “Simplifying legislation” by Fung (1999) and demonstrate its deficiencies. Despite efforts to develop his thesis with examples of tax statutes, Fung’s (1999) argumentation appears to be oversimplified as the complex topic certainly requires close examination and …show more content…
Fung (1999) holds dogmatic views, maintaining that simple English should be employed in all kinds of legal writings as the common people are the ‘true’ audience. Nevertheless, as suggested by Stanojevic (2011), style and register vary with the nature of an individual text, ranging from judgements, agreements, regulations, orders and constitutions. This partly explains why plain English remains chiefly used in certain types of documents, for example, contracts specifying rights and responsibilities of the parties involved, which should normally be presented plainly (Stanojevic, 2011). Shortly, the writing style is connected tightly to the subject matter and the target reader (Hartig and Lu, 2014; Poon,
Introduction
Legal writing style has long been regarded as obscure and antiquated. Therefore, as noted by Butt and Castle (2006), radical reformers like Jeremy Bentham advocate plain legal language, believing that such a movement can make everybody comprehend legal documents. In his article, Fung (1999) argues that the unintelligibility of law is primarily due to the drafting style, which can be totally avoided and should be completely removed, and that law can be composed in plainer English. Fung (1999) also states that such a move toward plain English in the source text will naturally produce a clear and reader-friendly target text in Chinese. This essay will conduct a critique on the paper entitled “Simplifying legislation” by Fung (1999) and demonstrate its deficiencies. Despite efforts to develop his thesis with examples of tax statutes, Fung’s (1999) argumentation appears to be oversimplified as the complex topic certainly requires close examination and …show more content…
Fung (1999) holds dogmatic views, maintaining that simple English should be employed in all kinds of legal writings as the common people are the ‘true’ audience. Nevertheless, as suggested by Stanojevic (2011), style and register vary with the nature of an individual text, ranging from judgements, agreements, regulations, orders and constitutions. This partly explains why plain English remains chiefly used in certain types of documents, for example, contracts specifying rights and responsibilities of the parties involved, which should normally be presented plainly (Stanojevic, 2011). Shortly, the writing style is connected tightly to the subject matter and the target reader (Hartig and Lu, 2014; Poon,