Latin in the Legal System

Being a Justice Law and Criminology major, I hope some day to become involved with the justice system.
Me and my roommate have a shared interest in law, given that her mother is a domestic violence lawyer and professor at GW Law, and she showed me a video of her mother's students making a "parody" of perfumes ads by using legal terms instead of real perfumes names. While I thought it was really funny, I also realized that in the legal world the use of specific terms is a common skill. But why do we still use such terms (such as Latin words) in legal settings?

A study by Peter R. Macleod for Boston College Law review states that;

"Court decisions are a valid subject of inquiry into the legal community's use of Latin for two reasons. First, in opinions, judges are talking to both the legal and nonlegal communities. 8 Judges' primary audiences are the attorneys working on the case [...] Second, judicial opinions are influential documents in a wider legal arena than just the immediate courthouse."

Knowing certain Latin words or terms is essential for a career involved in the legal system. It could be even compared to learning another language. In fact, this language is called "Legal English" and is defined as "the type of English used in legal writing". This mix of English and Latin is comparable with the "Singlish" described by Mark Abley in his chapter "Throw Away Your Dictionaries" as the mixture of Japanese and English in the city of Singapore. The difference between Singlish and Legalese (Legal English) is, though, that Legalese is not colloquoial, but quite the opposite. Legalese is encouraged and required when pursuing a legal career.  It is not an easy "language" to learn, as stated by Wikipedia:" Legal English, in common with the language used by other trades and professions, employs [and has] a great deal of technical terminology" which much of it derives from French and Latin, so a basic understanding of both langauges is required as well.

 Now, this might sound scary to anyone who has plans in entering a legal field, especially given the multitude of Latin words used, but I believe it is definitely a very useful skill to have and if someone has the determination and right motivation to learn Legalese, it'll be worth it. 

Comments

  1. AM. DadakApril 10, 2019 at 8:35 AM

    I came across an article that made me think of your interest in the justice system. It isn't directly related to your post here aside from the connections to your interests. I was reading a very recent article by John McWhorter, a well-known linguist in popular media (as much as any linguist is). He regularly writes for the Atlantic, and another one of his articles caught my eye: how if court transcribers don't understand the language variety of the speaker, they could enter erroneous information into the court record. You might enjoy it; here's the URL https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/01/stenographers-need-understand-black-english/581671/

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Forensic linguistics and social media?

Image
As I was doing research for my paper topic: forensic linguistics, I came across a Ted talk called "Forensic Linguistics Profiling & What Your Language Reveals About you" , which talks about forensic linguistics (the application of linguistics knowledge, methods and insight to the forensic context of law, language, crime investigation, trial, and judicial procedure) and how it could be applied to social media. I really thought this was interesting because so many crimes nowadays are committed behind a computer. From bullying to fraud. In fact, Harry Bradford talked about online harassment, and that around 20-25% of people who experience it online do not even know and never met the person who is harassing them. Forensic linguistics, though, could help fight that. It could analyze these anonymous people's language and deduct information about them such as their age, gender, education and much more. It is truly fascinating how forensic linguistics can be used in so m
Read more

Slang: what is it and why do we use it?

As I entered the American world, a new form of language was presented to me: slang. Yes, as I came into the U.S. I already knew English pretty well, but I was definitely not updated on the slang. Going to high school, I would hear plenty of words I didn't know from my classmates, such as "hip", "fierce", and "low key". Now, after having spent almost two years here, I can proudly say I am a slang-used as well, or I'm very "hip" to slang. But this made me question why is there such a big slang culture in the United States? First, we need to know what slang is. Britannica.com defines it as Slang[:] unconventional words or phrases that express either something new or something old in a new way. It is  flippant , irreverent, indecorous; it may be indecent or obscene. Its colourful  metaphors  are generally directed at respectability, and it is this  succinct , sometimes witty, frequently impertinent social  criticism  that gives
Read more

NintenDogs: the tragedy of "Rex"

Image
Almost everybody, as a kid, had that one letter that they couldn't pronounce correctly no matter how hard they tried. For me, it was the letter "X". I hated that I couldn't pronounce it, but, at the same time, it didn't really bother me much because the only word I knew that included an "X" was "xilofono" (xylophone). "X" is not a letter used much at all in Italian, in fact, when we are young in Italy we don't even study the "English" letters (J,K,W,X,Y), as there are very few Italian words that include them. So, I thought I was fine. But then one of the most horrible days of my childhood came to teach me a lesson. Me and my brother used to share a Nintendo DS, and with that, we shared all the games as well. My favorite game of them all was NintenDogs, the game where you could have virtual dogs and make them eat, play, and train. I had my two beautiful English Cocker Spaniels called "Sole" (Sun) and "Lun
Read more