The Stylistic Features Of Syntax In Legal English

In terms of linguistics, legal English is a functional variety of English with a specific vocabulary based on the common core of the English language, which is formed and used in the activities of legislation and judicature. Therefore, there are many specific words with special legal meaning. Moreover, the legal documents which stipulate rights and obligations must be precise, objective and standard disallowing any amplification or emotional expression, so many particular features of syntax are formed.With its entry into the WTO, China will involve itself in the world's economy more profoundly and widely. In the contemporary highly legalized society, laws are closely concerned with people's economic activities. Overseas investors in China need to learn about China's laws, and to conform to the international business practice, we also need to learn about other countries' laws. Thus to know the stylistic features of syntax in legal English is of great significance to learners of legal English including those who are fond of legal English, or workers of the legal profession, such as lawyers, judges and translators. Moreover under the circumstances, translation of legal documents also becomes increasingly important.However, in our country and abroad, there are few books or articles talking about legal syntax and its stylistic features, and the analysis is neither complete nor concrete. This dissertation is an attempt to do more systematic analysis of legal English, and is particularly going to examine the stylistic features of syntax in legal English in a more systematic way.In accordance with this task, the author divides this dissertation into six parts.In the first part, the author introduces the necessity and importance of legal English study and research, and its status as a subject and the situation of its research.The second part gives the definitions of syntax and style and the common features of syntax.The third part introduces concretely the definitions of law and legal English, thefunctions of law, the nature of law and the relationship between law and language. The explanation to law in Webster's Dictionary of America English is that "Law means the principles, rules, and regulations set up by a government, other authority, or by custom, that apply to all the people of a group; a system or collection of principles and rules." (Grand, 1997)Law is generally expressed in some specific forms, such as constitutions, statutes, regulations, stipulations, orders, rules etc. Legal English, or English for law or English for the legal profession, is one kind of legal language and at the same time is the professional English with certain occupational techniques. The study of legal English belongs to the category of applied linguistics. After the series of introduction, the author comes up with four points of stylistic features of legal English: Legal English is intended to be precise and accurate, formal and authoritative, concise and explicit, normal and standard. At last, the author stresses that precision and formality are the life-blood of legal English.The fourth part is the main body of the whole dissertation. The author analyses the stylistic features of syntax in legal English from nine aspects in a systematic way. They are the preponderance of declarative sentences, the complete sentences, the preponderance of long sentences, complicated attributive structure, the predomination of the simple present tense, the subjunctive mood in legislative expression, the use of loose sentences and the periodic sentences and the use of modality. Especially, the author gives four points to explain why the sentences in legal English are so long as follows: complicated adverbial structure including adverbial of time, adverbial of condition, adverbial of manner and adverbial of purpose; the position of some adverbials; the relative clause; synthesized complicated sentence. In each section of this part, the author puts forward her own viewpoints and tries to give some scientific and effective suggestions to the learners and the translators of legal English according to some linguistic theories and on the basis of a great number of examples in legal documents. Analyzed with comparison and contrast with other varieties of English, the stylistic features of syntax in legal English discussed in this paper are meant be easily noticeable for readers. After the discussion, the author concludes that thestylistic features of syntax in legal English result largely from the object of the legal style—to achieve precision and formality.The fifth part is the application of this thesis, which the author hopes will be valuable for the legal English study and law translation.The sixth part is the conclusion.