ABSTRACT
Medicine has its own specialist vocabulary and medics speak and write to each other using medical argot, but the actual business of medicine is to do with the human body, medicines and medical procedures. Medicine is done physically. Architects have their own specialist vocabulary and use language in their own particular way, but their business is to do with building materials and buildings. Lawyers, too, have their own specialist language but, by contrast, their work, its materials and products, are words and language: the words in sworn documents (deeds), Acts of Parliament, regulations, advocacy and court judgments. This chapter looks at both legal vocabulary (the language used by judges and lawyers in the course of their work) and also some examples of legal work where aspects of ordinary language are themselves the issues in question.
