The Legal Language written in spanish in a sentence and textual perspective: pathology, good practices and alternative versions

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to present the results of the research which is collected, as a report in the publication: Estudio de campo: lenguaje escrito (MONTOLÍO, 2011a). This is a fieldwork that, in a textual and sentence perspective, assesses the communicative quality of legal documents written in Spanish in Spain. The work brings together examples of linguistic formulations and mechanisms of syntactic-discursive organization of the documents submitted for analysis, which hinder or impede the understanding of the texts by the lay citizen in Law. It also provides examples of good practice, showing cases in which the jurists use a certain writing mechanism correctly and efficiently. Finally, it offers alternative versions to textual fragments with pathological conditions, in order to show that, when properly handled the expressive resources of language and expression can be simplified to make it clearer, the texts become more pleasant and keep the communication between the Administration of justice and citizenship. The research concludes with a proposal of recommendations to achieve a legal transparent language for both legal practitioners and for the citizen, as we also present in this paper.