ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the functions served by legal language, rather than describing what it looks or sounds like. It outlines accounts given by two influential writers on legal language of the goals and functions served by specific features of legal style. Some aspects of each of these accounts celebrate the effectiveness of legal language; others imply that unless legal language continues to be reformed away from its historical stylistic conventions, it will remain to some extent dysfunctional. The chapter also considers contemporary campaigns for reform of legal language more directly. An interesting, complementary approach to how legal language functions can be found in guidance on legal drafting. P. Tiersma significantly develops D. Mellinkoff's historical explanation of features of legal language: that they had their origins in a transition from an oral to a written legal culture. Tiersma reviews arguments in favour of the distinctiveness of legal language.
