Description
Focusing on under-researched aspects of legal communication in Europe, this volume presents state-of-the-art research into ‘plain language’ movements seeking to improve the comprehensibility of legislation and administrative texts for non-specialist audiences. It provides evidence from different languages (British English, Czech, EU legal English, Italian, Polish, Spanish) and legal systems (common law, civil law, EU law), covering issues of clarity and readability across a range of genres and sources including explanatory videos, legal decisions, contracts, administrative texts, pleadings, newsletter articles, and law blogs. The twelve chapters cover legislative language, judicial procedures and courtroom language, as well as institutional communication, and the language of law firms and their communication with the public. As well as showing the applicability of various models and computational tools for measuring the comprehensibility of key texts, the chapters also take in the emergent role of Artificial Intelligence in legal drafting. Several studies also include an experimental dimension, gauging the impact of different measures on target audiences, for example, individuals aged 65+, and trainee legal translators. The range of chapters encourages comparisons between various approaches to communicating the law in different European countries and legal systems as well as those found in non-European contexts. Given its wide scope and methodological diversity, the book will appeal to varied audiences including practitioners, researchers and students in the areas of law, public administration, communication, and applied linguistics.