ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines the history of legal English and discusses specialised legal and social functions served by legal language. It considers arguments for and against reform of how legislation is written. The chapter introduces each of these themes by showing how the distinctive features of modern legal English are the result of sociolinguistic complexity during successive periods leading into the more stable situation of English, including legal English, from the late seventeenth century onwards. It suggests that modern perceptions of legal English are affected not so much by the variety's specific historical features, but by the fact that historical substrata have persisted far more than in general usage, as collectively a marker of linguistic conservatism. The chapter also outlines key moments in the wider history of the English language, focusing especially on contact between different languages. The history of legal English calls for historical understanding that engages with wider sociolinguistic considerations as well as with language practices in legal institutions.
