ABSTRACT
I wonder if I might uplift from Your Honour the documentation? might seem a rather strange way for a lawyer to ask a judge if he can take back a piece of paper. Legal English is an occupational register, which includes specialised vocabulary and many formal sentence constructions. It is well known that legal documents, such as wills and contracts, are characterised by this specialised register, known in ordinary English as ‘legalese’. To a lesser extent, specialised vocabulary and formal sentence constructions are also found in spoken legal contexts, such as the opening example above from a courtroom hearing.
