Variation in the use of modality in legislative texts: Focus on shall

Garzone, Giuliana Elena

doi:10.1016/j.pragma.2013.07.008

Cited by 20 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 5 publications

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“…An initial analysis of modal auxiliaries in the English translations, presented in Table 1, showed that the most common auxiliary used was shall. The normalised frequencies per 1,000 words, when compared to the results for present-day British statutes, resemble those found in the 1980s (Garzone 2013). Given the dates of the translations for our corpus, it would seem Finnish statutes are not translated with the Plain English principles in mind.…”

supporting

confidence: 62%

“…Garzone 2013: 72-75). Garzone (2013) shows that in UK legislation the decline of shall began in the 1990s and by 2011 it is barely used at all. Her study shows that from 11.9 instances of shall / 1,000 words in the 1970s, there was a small decline into 11.1 in the 1980s, and after that a dramatic drop to 1.9 in the 1990s and 0.4 in the 2010s.…”

Section: Obligation In Legal Englishmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Identifying Obligation in Legal Finnish and Swedish through English Translations: A Corpus-Assisted Approach

Nurmi¹,

Kivilehto

2019

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Even though deontic modality is one central feature of statutory texts, codifying obligation, the descriptions of obligation in Finnish legal texts are still few. This corpus-assisted study of Finnish statutory texts has an innovative approach in using English translations as a starting point for identifying the linguistic forms obligation takes in Finnish statutory texts. Beyond describing Finnish deontic modality, we look at ways it has been translated into legally valid Swedish statutes, paying special attention on existing instructions for translators. The results show that, in addition to explicitly modal expressions, Finnish statutory texts express obligation frequently using the present indicative. In Swedish, there is a range of options, but there, too, the use of the present indicative is common. Based on this study, using English translations to identify such cases for further study is a viable option. The results of the study can be applied in translator training as well as in the work of legal translators.

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supporting

confidence: 62%

Section: Obligation In Legal Englishmentioning

confidence: 99%

Identifying Obligation in Legal Finnish and Swedish through English Translations: A Corpus-Assisted Approach

Nurmi¹,

Kivilehto

2019

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“…With regard to English, however, we can say that the modal verbs are considered lexical characteristics of legal terminology. (For more see Chen et al, 2020;Kolarkova & Savina, 2018;Richard, 2018;Krapivkina, 2017;Neill et al, 2017;di Carlo, 2017;Garzone, 2013;Gibová, 2011) We can draw several conclusions from this study, each of which shall carry its implications for further research studies on the translation of modals in Albanian. This research analysis of the selected corpus for the most frequently used modal verbs in Albanian legislative texts corpora confirms our research hypothesis that modal verbs are a lexical characteristic of legal terminology in the Albanian language.…”

Section: Discussion Of the Resultsmentioning

confidence: 63%

“…The domain of modality is a very complex one, even though it has been studied widely by many linguists in different languages (Chen et al, 2020;Kolarkova & Savina, 2018;Neill et al, 2017;di Carlo, 2016;Johan & Aguilar, 2015;Garzone, 2013;Kennedy, 1998Kennedy, , 2002. This can be seen from the research of relevant specialized linguists, including many contrastive works.…”

Section: Modality and Modal Verbsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Are modal verbs a lexical characteristic of legal terminology?

Hamiti¹,

Sopjani²

2023

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This article aims to examine the role of modal verbs in the language of the laws. The goal is to see whether we can say that modal verbs, like in English, are part of the terminology of the language of laws in Albanian, considering that so far, there is no research conducted in the Albanian language on this field. For this study, we established a corpus of legislative texts in both Albanian and English in a bid to analyze the ways modal verbs are translated, using applicable laws published in the official Gazette of the Republic of Kosovo. Besides, the Albanian language has a verb system that differs from that of English. In comparison, the Albanian language has only three modal verbs officially recognized and accepted by Albanian linguists and scholars: Alb. mund (Eng. can), Alb. duhet or lypset (Eng. must) and Alb. do (Eng. must), English has a wide pattern of expressing modal verbs. Consequently, as our research demonstrates, translators will find it difficult to translate them properly. Correct usage of modal verbs is one of the greatest challenges of the legislator as they play a vital role in the wording. Yet, the main purpose of this research paper is to determine if there are equivalents between English and Albanian modal verbs and investigate their occurrences in legislative texts giving an account of the differences in complexity in lexical and grammatical modality.

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“…Likewise, the use of the modal verb shall, one of the most characteristic features of legal English, frequently preferred to will to convey obligation, is also declining in UK legislation. This drop is particularly marked from the 1990s onwards, and is also probably influenced by campaigns and drafting recommendations of the Plain Language Movement on the basis that shall is itself a token of legalese (see Garzone 2013;Williams 2013), although legislative texts from the European Union seem to have resisted the move away from shall (Williams 2013: 362). Outside legal discourse, by contrast, shall has been in decline for centuries, in favour of will (see, e.g., Rissanen 2000;Gotti 2001Gotti , 2003Leech 2003).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Corpus of Contemporary English Legal Decisions, 1950–2021 (CoCELD): A new tool for analysing recent changes in English legal discourse

Rodríguez-Puente

Hernández-Coalla

2023

ICAME Journal

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Legal discourse is widely assumed to be resistant to change, and indeed legislative documents are extremely conservative with fixed and formulaic structures. However, recent research has shown that changes can be observed in the lexico-grammatical features of some legal documents when examined diachronically, particularly since the emergence in the 1970s of the Plain Language Movement, which sought to draw attention to the unnecessary complexity of the official language, this including legal discourse. Despite the crucial changes in legal language in recent years, research in that direction is scarce to date, particularly in the British English variety, probably due, in part, to the shortage of specialised corpora that allow this kind of studies. In order to bridge this gap, we have embarked on the compilation of the Corpus of Contemporary English Legal Decisions, 1950–2021 (CoCELD), a corpus of British judicial decisions produced between 1950 and 2021. In this paper we present the structure and characteristics of CoCELD, as well as the methodology used for its compilation. The new corpus, which was released in February 2022, contains sample texts of roughly 2,500 words for each year from 1950 to 2021, which adds up to more than 730,000 words. The corpus contains files in raw text and with POS-annotation, and is freely available for the research community under signed consent. With CoCELD we hope to contribute with a new, useful resource for linguists with an interest in legal language, from both a synchronic and a diachronic perspective.

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Variation in the use of modality in legislative texts: Focus on shall

Cited by 20 publications

References 5 publications

Identifying Obligation in Legal Finnish and Swedish through English Translations: A Corpus-Assisted Approach

Identifying Obligation in Legal Finnish and Swedish through English Translations: A Corpus-Assisted Approach

Are modal verbs a lexical characteristic of legal terminology?

The Corpus of Contemporary English Legal Decisions, 1950–2021 (CoCELD): A new tool for analysing recent changes in English legal discourse

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