The article presents the results of a study of de jure (modeled) and de facto (real) interpretation of the concept legal and linguistic uncertainty, which is relevant for modern Russian legal discourse, lawmaking, judicial, and expert practice. These features are typical for Russian legal discourse, lawmaking, judicial, expert practice, as well as the scientific sphere of communication. The article is aimed at studying the objective and subjective reasons for legal and linguistic uncertainty of legislative terms and legislative norms; analysing the conditions under which uncertainty is considered as an attribute of law language and a means of legal regulation or a defective formulating legal rules, falsa leclio. Legal and linguistic uncertainty is considered from different points of view: (a) the dichotomy clarity/ uncertainty; (b) the legislative definition; (c) attitude to the system of Russian legislation terms; (d) variability, disambiguate, double-meaning; (e) the basis for procedural decisions (expert assessment, adjustment of the norm of the draft law or the current law, rejection of the draft law). The subjective factors of legal and linguistic uncertainty are analyzed, on the one hand, from the position of professional competencies of law developers and specialists examining laws in different aspects - linguistic, legal, anti-corruption, legal and technical, pedagogical, etc. On the other hand, they are analysed from the point of view of legal and other knowledge of the addressees, those, who interpret the law. The research methodology is traditional for modern Russian studies and legal linguistics: analysis, comparison, deduction, induction, analogy, modeling, as well as contextual, interpretive, systemic, discursive, interdisciplinary, practice-oriented and other approaches. Due to interdisciplinary nature of the research, works on linguistics, jurisprudence, legal linguistics, documents of legislative, judicial, expert practice, texts of Russian (federal) laws, materials from the Dictionary of Terms of Russian Legislation were used. The prospects for the study are outlined: considering legal and linguistic uncertainty in the aspect of creating laws in two or more state languages, orthology, etc.

The article is devoted to the problem of determination of the subject of linguistic expert examination of draft laws on the basis of the current legislation analysis in the aspect of theoretical and applied linguistics. In this research the author uses the comparative, statistical methods, as well as induction, analysis and synthesis. The article analyzes different types of definitions of linguistic expert examination of draft laws, and examines some problems related to the expert analysis of draft laws. The author of the article notes certain features of correlation between linguistic expert examination of draft laws and legal expert examination of draft laws. The author expresses her own position in relation to the concept and content of linguistic expert examination of draft laws, on the basis of the current practice in the rule-making sphere. The author pays attention to the criteria for evaluation of the text of the draft law: “consistency of presentation” (allows analyzing and evaluating linguistic units and the text of the draft law as a voice unit), “literacy” (allows checking the draft law text for grammar, spelling, punctuation, slips, factual or technical mistakes) and “matching style” (allows analyzing and evaluating the draft law text talking into account the compliance to stylistic features of drafting legislative texts).

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The research featured legal terms formed according to the semantic method, e.g. semantic generalization, expansion / narrowing of meaning, institutional specification, metonymic or metaphorical transfer, their correlation, etc. The author highlighted the interconnection of semantic term formation and polysemy. The article contains a list of factors that cause ambiguity of legal concepts: (a) the author of the legislative text and the recipient; (b) the open nature of the legal terminological system, as well as the reproduction of multivalued lexemes in the laws and their reinterpretation; (c) the development of various variants of legislative definitions, etc. The paper focuses on semantic generalization and institutional specification of legal concepts. The author describes the interconnection of denotative-predicative and logical-conceptual approaches, as well as the mechanism of generalization and abstraction of lexical meaning. The differences of metonymic and metaphorical transfers were interpreted in terms of contrasting functions, models of education, and connotation potential. The research revealed a high productivity of metonymic transfer and legal concepts based on a combination of different types of semantic terminology. The study featured the texts of Russian Federal and regional laws. The author applied various approaches, e.g. discursive, contextual, intertextual, component, denotative-predicative, logical-conceptual, interpretative, comparative, etc. The results, conclusions, and illustrative material presented in this work may be of some interest to scientists and practitioners who study legal terminology, legal texts, and issues of the Russian language as a state language.