1. Characteristics of Legal English

2. Legal language
Legal language is a language used by the legal profession, BUT it is not aimed solely at internal communication within the profession because it governs all areas of social life.

3. Legal language v. Other LSPs
Legal language differs from other languages for specific purposes in the following ways:
1. It is very old and it goes back to the beginnings of organised society
2. It is not used only for internal professional communication as it affects the life of all citizens (Plain English for Law movement)
3. It can absorb terms from any other professional language

4. Characteristics of Legal English
Archaisms
Borrowings
Collocations
Ordinary words with special meaning
Doubles and triplets
Pro-forms
Subordination, nominalisation, passivization, multiple negation
Special usage of modal verbs

5. Decide whether the following statements are true (T) or false (F)
Decide whether the following statements are true (T) or false (F). If false, provide the correct information.
Term
Meaning T F
collocation
a sequence of words that co-occur more often than would be expected by chance
doublet
Two or more words having the same form
modal verb/auxiliary
a type of verb that is used to indicate modality: likelihood, ability, permission, and obligation
pro-form
a type of function word or expression that stands for (expresses the same content as) another word, phrase, clause or sentence where the meaning is recoverable from the context.
synonym
A word that has the same form as another word
syntax
The identification, analysis and description of the structure of a given language's words

6. Term
Meaning T F
collocation
a sequence of words that co-occur more often than would be expected by chance
doublet
Two or more words having the same form
modal verb/auxiliary
a type of verb that is used to indicate modality: likelihood, ability, permission, and obligation
pro-form
a type of function word or expression that stands for (expresses the same content as) another word, phrase, clause or sentence where the meaning is recoverable from the context.
synonym
A word that has the same form as another word
syntax
The identification, analysis and description of the structure of a given language's words

7. Bill of Rights
James II's flight in 1688 had given Parliament the opportunity to alter the succession to the English throne and to elect a King. Parliament offered the throne to William and Mary. k
The 1689 Bill of Rights legislated that the succession to the throne would pass first to any children of James II's two daughters Mary and Anne before going to any children born to William by a second marriage. Mary died in 1694.

8. The Act of Settlement 1701
In June 1701 Parliament hoped to resolve the problem of succession by passing the Act of Settlement. It confirmed the provision of the Bill of Rights that no Catholic or person with a Catholic spouse could rule.
The Act legislated that, to preserve the Protestant Succession in case neither Anne nor William had any more children, the Crown would pass at Anne's death to a Protestant relation. This was Sophia, the electress of Hanover in Germany, the granddaughter of James I.

9. Sophia, the electress of Hanover, missed out on becoming Queen of England by two months, as she died, aged 84, in June 1714, just before the death of Queen Anne, aged 49.
Her son George I succeeded to the throne upon Anne's death in 1714, and his descendants, including the current Queen, have ruled Britain ever since - all because of a decision of Parliament in 1701 to alter the succession and to choose its own monarch.

10. The aim of the Act was also to strengthen the guarantees for ensuring a parliamentary system of government.
The Act of Settlement further restricted the powers and prerogatives of the Crown.
Under the Act, parliamentary consent had to be given for the Sovereign to engage in war or leave the country, and judges were to hold office on good conduct and not at Royal pleasure - thus establishing judicial independence. 

11. Assignment
Read an extract from The Act of Settlement (p. 6-7). Which characteristics of legal English can you find? (Consider the lexical elements: technical terms, legal doublets, collocations; also pay attention to syntax, punctuation, the use of capital letters…)

12. The Succession to the Crown Act 2013
The Succession to the Crown Act (2013) amended the provisions of the Bill of Rights and the Act of Settlement to end the system of male primogeniture, under which a younger son can displace an elder daughter in the line of succession. The Act applies to those born after 28 October The Act also ended the provisions by which those who marry Roman Catholics are disqualified from the line of succession.

13. Assignment
Read The Succession to the Crown Act (p. 7). In what ways does its style differ from that of The Act of Settlement 1700? Consider the lexical elements, punctuation, sentence structure, the text layout....

14. Thank you for your attention!