Research On Vagueness Of Legal English

Legal English refers to an English literary style that penetrates all the process of legislation, judicature and legal enforcement in common-law countries. As a kind of customary language it includes some words, phrases and mode of expression with its unique style. One of the most important characteristics of legal English is exact in its usage. But vague words can be found everywhere in legal texts and judicial practice. Efforts have been made here to compromise the contradiction between vagueness and preciseness.In common-law countries legal English is also called language of law or legal language. Since the 1970s research on legal language in foreign countries mainly focuses on three aspects: legal language as a process; legal language as a tool; linguists' participation in the interactive applied research as to lingual evidence. Generally speaking, research on vague linguistics abroad mainly deals with fundamental theories and the relationship between vagueness and some other disciplines.As to research on vagueness of legal English in foreign countries mainly involves the relationship between vagueness and preciseness, sources of vagueness, etc. But what makes research abroad different from domestic study is that foreign scholars usually consider whether the existence of vagueness threatens the ideal of the rule of law. Endicott (2000) thinks vagueness in law can lead to indeterminacies in legal rights and obligations; vagueness is not merely a linguistic feature of law. Law is necessarily vague. George C. Christie (2000) considers vagueness is an inescapable attribute of language; vagueness is often an aid to precise communication; afunctioning legal system depends on the existence of vagueness. Keith C. Culver (2004) explores research on varieties of vagueness.At the present time hardly can any published theory books on vagueness of legal English be seen. Most of the researchers just regard vagueness as one of the attributes of legal English mentioned in some academic articles. Du Jinbang (2001) analyzes the relationship between vagueness and preciseness, the sources of vagueness, removal of vagueness, determination of judicial language, lingual application in tribunal activities, etc. so as to survey the process of vagueness removal. Wang Qingmei (2002) explores the basis on which vagueness exists in legal English and the role that vague words play in legal English. Liu Weiming (2003) goes deep into the nature and sources of vagueness in legal language. In his opinion, since the sources of vagueness in legal language are so diversified and perplexing theoretical research should be reinforced. Dong Xiaobo makes a dialectic analysis of vague words used in legal language. Meanwhile he probes into some other topics like the pragmatic function of legal language and degrees of vagueness. In addition, many other researchers, such as Yang shufang (1996), Jia Yunjing (2002), Hu Jun (2003) etc. have made discussion and analysis on this phenomenon from different points of view.Scholars in both China and foreign countries discuss vagueness in legal English at various angles, which provides theoretical instructions for further study and valuable reference for the construction of law theories. However most of the related research still rests on the superficial level of legal English and the data adopted are legal texts and documents on the whole. Especially as to the sources of vagueness in legal English no unified standard is applied. Therefore this thesis aims at showing the distinction among vagueness, preciseness and ambiguity on the basis of previous achievements and the author also attempts to define vagueness more clearly and classify vagueness in a new way. At the same time on account of the limitations caused by the presence of vagueness, some problems arise in practice. So the author tries to put forward some new methods to remove the vagueness in legal English.At the end of this thesis, the author poses some other deficiencies in the studies on vagueness of legal English. At the same time, it is the limitation of time and access to materials that achievements in foreign countries are not fully used for reference, which is worthy topics for further studies.