On The Rhetoric Of The English Language Of Legal Writing

The present thesis is just an attempt to discover the main rules and characteristics of the rhetoric of the English language of legal writing. By doing so, he intends to make some theoretical preparations for the correct or proper comprehension and especially the translation of legal English. Based on the general theory of rhetoric, this writer hopes to present a thesis which might possibly ascertain the most significant rhetoric devices in legal English in a scientific and systematic way. In the present thesis, the rhetorical devices are divided into three categories: lexical, sentential, and sectional devices, each of which forms an independent chapter. And the whole thesis, plus an introduction and a conclusion, is thus made up of five chapters as follows.Chapter One presents an introduction to rhetoric and the principles and requirements of rhetoric. This writer introduces various definitions or interpretations of the term rhetoric before he gives his own comprehension of the concept. Since rhetoric studies how to use language most effectively to express one抯 idea or thought or emotions, there are generally two principles for rhetoric:bone is being suitable for content; the other is being suitable for context. And in order to fully carry out the two principles, the following requirements for rhetoric must be met: 1) accuracy梡rimary; 2) clarity梡rimary; 3) vividness梚mportant; and 4) conciseness梡ositive.Chapter Two discusses the relationship between law and its language. Any analysis of the language in an area of specialized application should start with an inquiry into the circumstances of that application. Thus we ought to assume a pragmatic approach to the language of documents of legal character. This approach firstly leads to the discovery of certain common characteristics inherentb?ABSTRACTin any legal and judiciary activity. Law is in nature a tool by which particular outside efforts梩he state authority梚mpose and maintain order in human affairs. As law represents the state power, it ought to be solemn, sacred and compulsive, which calls for a special variety of language to embody such characteristics. Another fundamental characteristic of law is its absolute reliance on language as a method of operation, because law is of itself singularly devoid of any physical substance or instruments. Hence the only working tool of it is abstract language, both on the conceptual level and as a representational device, and there is no further system of notation or annotation that would lend itself to the practice of law. Involving the description and definition of concepts and relationships of law, legal words, carried out as a linguistic process, aim at statements that are exact, clear, and compulsive. Therefore the nature and characteristics of law determine the language of law as being formal, exact and clear.The lexical options in legal English are dealt with in Chapter Three. This chapter shows that legal writing tends to employ terms of art (lexicon), archaic words (archaisms), formal words, general words, referential words, etc. Nowadays because of the use of lexicon and archaisms legal writing has been suffering criticism. However, the writer of the thesis maintains that the majority of these words, despite their looking archaic and/or ostentatious sometimes, make their appearance in legal writing mainly for the aim of being accurate and concise.Chapter Four is on the sentential devices in the rhetoric of legal English. In this chapter, the writer makes an effort to find out how the language requirements for legal English are achieved and embodied through sentential devices. Sentential devices here refers to variation in the use of sentence structures for rhetorical effect. Many of the most common schemes are discussed concerning the sentence construction in legal English. The discussion is to be made from two aspects: 1) The types of sentences as occurring in legal writing梖rom the outerABSTRACTsphere of...