Discourse Markers Sentence Openers in Legal English

• Author: Onorina Botezat
• Position: Spiru Haret University
• Pages: 250-253

European Integration - Realities and Perspectives

2010

250

Interdisciplinary Dimensions of Communication Science

Discourse Markers s Sentence Openers in Legal English

Onorina Botezat

Spiru Haret University, Constanța, yvycar@yahoo.com

Abstract: Discourse markers ca n be defined as linguistic expressions of different length whic h carry

pragmatic and prop ositional meaning, they are used to combine clauses or to connect sentence ele ments and

they appear in b oth speech and writing, and facilitate the discourse. Each discourse marker indicates a

particular meaning relationship between two or more clauses. English is predominantly the language of

international legal practic e and its importance to lawyers cannot be over-emphasized. The way in which one

uses legal English can therefore be crucial to pr ofessional success. This paper stresses the importance of good

usage of discourse markers in legal English.

Key words: legal language; discourse markers; international legal practice

1. Legal Discourse

The term “legal” refers to any item of written or oral communication related to law, justice actors, or

court activity. Law has two primary functions. It orders human relations and rule as social order.

The legal register is characterized by technical terms or “terms of art” as warranty deed, criminal

proceedings, Procurator Fiscal, grantee, devisee, common terms with uncommon meanings, as the

term assignment – it does not mean a “task or duty”, or “something assigned”, but it means the

“transference of a right, interest or title”, archaic expressions such as hereinafter, hereto, hereby,

hereof, aforesaid, whosoever, thereof, therein, doublets as last will and testament, give and bequest,

will and bequest, aid and abet, cease and desist, rules and regulations, frequent use of prepositional

phrases as according to, as to, in the event of,

As Danet (1985:281) claims, “syntactic features are probably more distinctive of legal English than

are lexical ones, and certainly account for more of the difficulties of lay persons in comprehending it”.

She identifies eleven of such features. Among others we mention nominalization: make such provision

for the payment of instead of provide for the payment, or give time for the payment of any debts

instead of give time for persons owing debts to pay, use of passives and conditionals, sentence length

and complexity, negatives: not, never, unless, except or by prefixes un-, in-, binomial expressions:

goods and materials, liable and responsible, engage or participate, generally and specifically, control,

direct or supervise; employee, partner, agent, or principal; files, records, documents, drawings,

specifications, equipment, and similar items.