The Review Of The Plain Legislative Language In The United States

In the Western English world,there is often be advocated of using a simple and clear way of expression.The core of this expression is to express specific objects or assumed specific objects by using simple and concise language.In order to more effectively achieve this kind of expression,in the western English world,a so called“plain English” has been developed.It produce an effect on the society widely and profoundly.This can be understood as the process of constructing the collective intention of social facts,and the construction process is also reflected the legislation of the United states.From a linguistic point of view,on the one hand,the evolution of American legislative language is constrained by the language of the law itself,and on the other hand,it is also influenced by the change of language outside the law.From the beginning of the founding of the United States,there was a strong British embodiment in many ways,not only in the reflection of the language,but also in the law.It is understandable that the United States tried to get rid of the influence of its English background,and achieve its own self independence,both in language and law.Under such a large social structure,the evolution logic of the American legislation can be summarized as follows: subsistence survival--building self-identification,realizing self-independence--improving self-development.At the same time,such evolutionlogic can be regarded as the adaptation and response of the United States to its social background in the legislative aspect.From a legal point of view,“how to use plain language to formulate legislative text,so that the public can easily understand” is a question has its own past.It has been constantly pondering and exploring in the legislative field since the founding of the United States.The evolution of the plain legislative language is a process.This process is the process of the legislative language becoming more and more plain.Moreover,this process has its own unique logical basis and evolution path.The confrontation and compromise between the statute law and the common law,the opposition and unification between the federal legislation and the state legislation,all left traces in the evolution of the American legislative language.In summary,the purpose of this paper is to present the process of its construction through the review of American legislative language.The paper also tries to dig deeper of the process of legislative language evolution.Though manifested in the external structure of the interaction between language and law and mutual restriction,in a deeper level is the embodiment of the public authority and the game behind the American social change in the ideal and the concept of the society.Based on this,we should survey the legislative language in our country.Though there are different in the legal traditions and language systems,we still have various similar problems of drafting plain legislative texts.How to make our legislative language more standardized and concise without losing its professionality and accuracy,not only the problem of the language practice,but also the legal practice,moreover,it sometimes need the legislators to make their own choices.