2007. Crossovers in legal cultures in Westminster and Edinburgh: some recent changes in the language of the law

In this paper I describe and analyse some of the changes that have been taking place in the language of the law in the United Kingdom over the last few years. As is well known, legal language tends to be intrinsically conservative in any country or organization. However, the specific nature and evolution of the English legal system, based on Common Law and the principle of precedent, and on the general idea that legally binding documents should contain all foreseeable hypotheses rather than outlining general questions of principle, have produced a particularly cumbersome and antiquated type of legal language. This unique brand of legal English was exported over time from the mother country to its colonies and dominions. Since the early 1970s the Plain Language movement has been actively campaigning to modernize legal language, with varying degrees of success. In Williams (2005) I asserted that it has been in the English-speaking countries in the southern hemisphere, notably Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, that there has been a greater willingness by the authorities to modernize the language of legislative texts with respect to the more ‘conservative ’ legal establishments of nations of the northern hemisphere, especially the United Kingdom and the United States