Date- 28.03.

2020

Reading Material for B. Com LL.B. X Semester

LEGAL LEXICON

1.1 Introduction:
The present chapter discusses the lexical features of legal language. A lexicon is the
vocabulary of a person, language, or branch of knowledge. Legal lexicon has its own
characteristics. It differs from the general-usual discourse in multiple ways. Three
p’s namely, ‘precision’, ‘preservation’ and ‘prestige’ are quite crucial in this
regard. Legal language is characterized by utmost precision as every care is taken to
avoid loop holes. It is an attempt to save from the possibility of instability and
vagueness of meaning with the likely effect of dissolution of agreements and
contracts. As many words from the traditional sources have been used in the legal
texts that are available in the forms of treaties, contracts, agreements, etc, they are
more or less known as legal jargon today as they belong to the classical languages
like Greek and Latin. The legal drafters too prefer such words in the legal documents
as the retaining of the words does not necessarily change the connotations or acquire
new meanings of the words utilized. The words from such sources have validity for
years and hence the necessity of new words does not arise.
Several years ago, Thomas Jefferson, lawyer and statesman, had criticised the legal
language in general and the outdated archaic words in particular by saying that
language becomes incomprehensible due to the use of saids, ands, ors and aforesaid.
He was refereeing to the lengthiness of legalese which generates complexity. He
further verbally attacked the endless tautologies, convulsion of case within case,

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parenthesis with parenthesis, multiplied efforts at certainty by said and aforesaids.
(Tandon & Behn 5)

1.2 Technical Terms or Technical Vocabulary:

Technical words are the words the meaning of which is well agreed to among law
persons, but are unfamiliar to a lay person using ordinary English. Most of the words
in the legal discourse are technical and obviously so, as they belong exclusively to
the discourse of law. As law touches every field of this universe, the range of legal
words or the technical words is quite wide. Some of the legal words or the legalised
words are- abate, bail, allege, requisition, domicile, forfeit, Decree, Mortgage, Sub-
letting, Deem, Permises, Tenant, Lease, Hereinafter, landlord, and so on. Some of
these are English words whereas many of them of them belong to the foreign origin.
Every profession has its own characteristic vocabulary so has the legal language.
The terms like warranty, deed, criminal proceedings, Procurator Fiscal, grantee,
devisee, waiver, furnish, covenant , demurrer, novation and so on are typically found
in the legal language and make it distinct. Then there are some terms or words which
have both the everyday meaning and the legal meaning too and obviously both differ.
They are polysemic in nature and have high contextual meaning e.g. Assignment,
Maintenance, Consideration, Title.
However, it is quite interesting and significant to note and mention here that such
technical words which are hardly found in the everyday discourse have been duly
defined in the acts. Here is an example of the THE MAHARASHTRA
UNIVERSITIES ACT, 1994:
“‘adjunct professor, ‘adjunct reader’ or ‘adjunct lecturer’ means a person from
industry, trade, agriculture, commerce or any other allied field who is so designated
during the period of collaboration or association with the university.” (advocatekhoj)

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The term ‘adjunct professor’ is not very familiar or usual and hence the definitions
are served in the act itself to avoid any ambiguity arising out of its unfamiliarity.
There are many such definitions of the unusual expressions like ‘Denotified Tribes’,
‘conducted college’, ‘autonomy’ and so on in the act but in order to be succinct, they
have not been refereed here.
Technical terms or phrases like ‘cy pres’ that means in case the purposes for which
properties are dedicated by way of Trust or Will cannot be accomplished, it is
permissible under the doctrine of cy pres to utilize the properties for similar purposes
are a boon because in just two words an explanation in a paragraph is accomplished.
Such technical terms have precise definitions. The great scholar of legal language
Mellinkoff (293 & 388) who usually criticises legal jargon also admits that “a small
area of relative precision in the language of the law—mostly terms of art”. The use
of technical terms in legal language is the result of the convention.

1.3 Archaic Expressions:

“Art of expression or efficiency in speaking is considered to be a synonymous of the
legal language.” (Tripathi xxi) When the present writer spoke about the faults of
others, he himself has committed many grammatical errors in the above sentence.
Among the rarely used or archaic expressions are the adverbial expressions like
hereinafter, herein, hereto, hereby, hereof, whosoever, thereof, therein, heretofore,
herewith, whereby, and wherefore; said and such (as adjectives); verbs like to
darraign (to clear a legal account or settle an accusation or controversy); nouns like
surrejoinder (the answer by the plaintiff to a rejoinder by the defendant); adjectives
like afore-said, and so on.
The archaic adverbs which are actually a mixture of deictic elements (Alcaraz &
Brian 8):
-The parties hereto agree as follow.
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- Hereinafter referred to as wife.
- The total rent for the term hereof is the sum of________.
The origin of such archaic expression can be traced back in Old English and, “may
have originally been introduced as ambiguity resolving elements or means of
abbreviation” (Hiltunen 84). The archaic expressions make the legal documents
more formal and distinct too. Tiersma states that “legal language often strives toward
great formality; it naturally gravitates towards archaic language”. (95)
Many lawyers prefer to use the antique terms. ‘imbibe’ replaces ‘drink’; ‘inquire’ is
used in place of ‘ask’; ‘peruse’ has been widely used instead of ‘read’; ‘forthwith’
is a substitution of ‘right away’ or ‘at once’ for them. (Alcaraz & Brian 5). Moreover,
the words like ‘witnesseth’ instead of simple ‘witness’ add the archaic flavor the
legal language.
Rather arbitrary and strange expressions are often experienced in the legal language.
The expressions ‘of even date herewith’ is used in place of the easier and usual
expression ‘dated the same as this document’; ‘these presents’ instead of ‘this
document’; ‘the date hereof instead of ‘today’; ‘in my said mother’, instead of ‘my
mother’; ‘for the purpose of identification only more particularly delineated’, instead
of ‘for identification only’ or ‘more particularly’ delineated ; ‘jointly and severally’
instead of ‘separately and together’.
On one hand the archaic expressions or the antiquated terminology add complexity
to the meaning and on the other had it is a boon also. Besides retaining the distinct
identity of the legal language, it has other functions to perform. It helps to evade
niggling changes as regards the legal lexical meaning is taken into consideration.
Crystal and Davy (213) rightly endorse it when they say that “what has been tested
and found adequate is best not altered”. The archaic and antiquated expressions have
been tested and have received authoritative interpretation over the years. Moreover,

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the frequent use of rare Old English and Middle English gives archaic feel to
legalese.
The world renowned linguists namely David Crystal and Derek Davy (1969) in the
masterpiece Investigating English Style have said that they had been also intrigued
by the rarity in legal documents of substitute words like he, she, they, their, this, that
and it.
It is not difficult but also risky to alter them. Words have different facets of meanings
as per the context (s) and hence, sometimes it has been felt better to retain the same
archaic words. So the risk of finding difficulty in understanding is better than the
danger of misinterpretation. Hence, the conservative legal terms are better often
though they handicap the better understanding especially of the laypersons as they
become more inaccessible to the common readers.

1.4 The Use of Foreign Words and Expressions:

English legal language is greatly instilled with lexical items derived especially from
French and Latin which must be the result of the long Norman domination of
England in the fields like law and government. Regular use of old French and
Norman French words like tort, lien, estoppels, laches which are never used in
common vocabulary can be termed as loan words which cast shadow over most legal
works. (Wikipedia)
Since Anglo-Norman was the language of the courts, there were French borrowings
into the legal English. Interestingly, Latin was used for the official documents. Due
to the widespread opposition to the Latinized expressions, there was an unsuccessful
attempt through the British Parliament in 1730 to abolish Latin expressions from the
legal proceedings. However, there was not smooth sailing in the absence of Latin
expressions and the Latin expressions had to be restored after short suspension.
Blackstone (cited in Williams 65) has said that certain technical terms were “not
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capable of an English dress with any degree of seriousness”. The Legalese inevitably
comprises of many Latin and French expressions (medieval and modern) in their
original forms. As we Indians follow the British model of English and legalese is
primarily English, we find many French and Latin expressions in the legal discourse.
As a result of this, we have ‘habeas corpus’, ‘de jure’, ‘animus furandi’ and ‘ex parte’
very much legalised from Latin whereas ‘tort’, ‘a posteriori’ etc are borrowed from
the French. There is a very wide range of words from the Latin and French origins.

Moreover the huge number of terms of Norman origin is still used in legal English
(e.g. court, judge, appeal). Many of such words are now virtually unfamiliar outside
legal circles, e.g. attainder (the loss of civil rights through conviction for high
treason). However such terms have become ‘naturalized’ as English words due to
the consistent use of them in the usual functioning. Other expressions have
maintained all of their Frenchness, such as profits à prendre (meaning the right of
common, where one has the right to take the fruits of the property of another). A
French term found in contemporary legal English is acquis communautaire, which
refers to the entire body of EU law. A vast number of foreign lexical terms or
expressions in legal texts originate from Latin, such as ex parte (on behalf of), ratio
legis (the reason for, or principle behind, a law) etc.

The foreign expressions such as Jurisdiction, alien, arbitrator, attorney, per capita,
suo moto, statute, ex officio have become amalgamated and assimilated in such a
way that they are undistinguishable today from the other native expressions.
However, the words like mens rea, de facto, amicus curiae, prime facie, habeas
corpus, corpus delicit, interalia, though are borrowed from foreign languages, have
little place in today’s normal English language. Here are some more expressions
with their meaning:

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 sine die: without arranging a date for another meeting

ad hoc: (Latin) for this purpose only

alias : a name used other than the given name of a person

sub judice: a legal case or piece of evidence which is being considered by a judge

or in a court and some details of it cannot be discussed in public.

alimony: support paid by one ex-spouse to the other as ordered by a court in a

divorce case.

per diem: per day. e.g. The financial assistance for permanent teachers of

University/colleges will be paid maximum 50% of the total admissible expenditure.

bona fides: evidence or proof that someone has sincere feelings or is who they

claim to be Synonyms or related words for this sense of bona fides.

Res judicata: an issue adjucated

Bes nova: a new thing; an undecided question of law

Actus reus: guilty act

As far as Indian legal language is concerned, we find many Parasi-Arabic- Urdu

words in it. It must be the result of the 400 year old Mughal Empire. Hence the words
like Vakalatnama, Belif, hawaldar, mamletdar, kacheri, mofusil, talak, kabool,

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hokum are still found in the legal language used in India in general and Maharashtra
in particular.

Like Latinisms, the existence of legal French terms within English legal language is
also apparent. After the Norman Conquest in 1066, the language of the invaders
gained an undeniable position in the legal sphere of England, bringing with it a
wealth of legal French terminology (Crystal & Davy 208)

English is a borrowed language and so is law. The emperors affected the language
and law equally. Hence, clear evolution through the impact of the invasions and
emperors is apparent and evident in the legal language. The legal vocabulary (in
English as English is considered here as the legal language) contains many words of
French origin viz. appeal, bar, counsel, suit, estate, jury, lease, summon, tenant,
verdict, contract, proposal, schedule, terms, conditions, policy, alias, quash and so
on. During the time of Christ, Latin became the language of law, court records and
statues. However, it remained the language of the highly learned-intelligentsia and
could not become the legal language in strict sense as it was hardly used in pleadings
and debates. Despite this, it left a mark on the legal language as the Latin terms like
ab intio, suo motu, ultra vires, bonafide, adhoc got assimilated into the legal
language. Such Latin terms and Latinized vocabulary has become the life and blood
of legal language.

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