In this chapter I focus on documents drafted by legislative bodies. In investigating the changes that have taken place in the verb phrase in legislative English in recent decades, my analysis adds another dimension to the concept of ‘current change’ with respect to the other chapters in this volume, insofar as changes occurring in legislative language may be the result of prescriptive engineering rather than of subconscious choice. Over the last few decades, several parliamentary counsels and drafting bodies have responded to the request to modernise legal English in general, leading in some cases to what has been defined as a ‘modal revolution’ (Williams 2009), with regard to the choice of modal auxiliaries. As a result, a number of drafting style manuals have been updated over the last two or three decades in line with the calls for change, and drafters have generally complied with the new guidelines. My aim, then, is to illustrate to what extent transformations have taken place in the verb phrase in legislative language in different parts of the English-speaking world.

As is well known, the Plain language movement has been influential in a number of areas of public life over the last few decades. Within the legal sphere it has raised general awareness concerning the need to make legal matters and legal documents more comprehensible and accessible to non-experts, particularly in today’s digitalized world where information is freely available to the general public. In this paper my aim is to provide an overview of the way the Plain language movement has evolved in the legal sphere since the 1970s. In particular, I will highlight the following points: • the reasons why the Plain language movement came into being • the major successes of plain language in the legal sphere over the last 40 years • the areas where legalese still predominates, and the reasons for the resistance to change • the way the Plain language movement has adapted to the digitalized world and the implications for future development. My observations will be mainly restricted to the English-speaking world, including international organizations where English is one of the official languages, but I will occasionally make reference to other plain language organizations outside the English-speaking world where this seems relevant. I also provide a list of the major organizations involved in promoting plain language in English in the legal sphere today as a reference guide.

As is well known, the language of the law tends to be relatively conservative in its style when compared with most other varieties of language. However, in recent decades we have witnessed a minor revolution in the way legal English has developed, largely as a result of pressures from the Plain language movement. An encrusted style of writing which had predominated for centuries is being overhauled, at least in the sphere of legislative texts, in an ongoing process which is transforming ‘legalese’ into standard formal English. As with any development involving change, there are detractors on the one hand and enthusiasts on the other. Referring to the benefits of drafting in plain language, Butt and Castle (2001: 89) affirm that “Errors are harder to find in dense and convoluted prose. Removing legalese helps lay bare any oversights in the original.” Central to the philosophy of plain language is the idea that a legally binding text should be understandable to laypersons. Inevitably, such a view clashes with the reasoning of many ‘traditionalist’ legal practitioners who argue that the main purpose of a legally binding text is that it should be able to withstand scrutiny from experts and perform the task it was meant to undertake, irrespective of whether it may be intelligible to a layperson. In this paper I will highlight some of the main arguments for and against this fundamental question of whether a legally binding text should be written with a non-expert readership in mind, focusing on the concept of ‘error’ which, from the perspective of the more traditionalist members of the law community, concerns the newly adopted terms or expressions introduced, in many cases, for the benefit of laypersons, whereas from the perspective of plain language proponents, the ‘error’ is to be found in the older style of ‘legalese’ which abounded until fairly recently making legal texts incomprehensible to most citizens and which has now been duly ‘rectified’.

In this paper I focus on two developments that only came to light recently where the question of plain language relating to the legal sphere plays a key role. The first is the so-called ‘Good law’ initiative set up by the UK Office of the Parliamentary Counsel which was officially launched on 16 April 2013. The second is the report on Document Quality Control in Public Administrations and International Organisations coordinated by Silvia Ferreri which was published in July 2013 and presented by Silvia Ferreri and Jacqueline Visconti at the 3rd Translation Studies Day at the European Commission in Brussels on 25 October 2013. Both projects are concerned with issues relating to the drafting of legally binding texts and with finding satisfactory ways of overcoming the inherent complexity of legal texts and of making them more comprehensible, and also more easily accessible, to a wider public. The first is aimed primarily at a readership residing in the UK, whereas the second is much more international in scope, reaching beyond the confines of the European Union and taking into consideration also non-EU countries such as the USA, Canada, Switzerland and India. I begin by looking at the main characteristics of the ‘Good law’ initiative before going on to outline the salient features of Document Quality Control in Public Administrations and International Organisations. I then proceed to analyse both projects in particular from the perspective of plain language in legal discourse before providing some conclusions.

My aim in this chapter is to analyse how interpersonality, i.e. the way the writers project themselves and their audience in the discourse, plays a role in the way legislative drafting guides and manuals are written. Within the realm of legal discourse, legislative drafting guides and manuals constitute a subgenre of their own. For the purposes of this chapter I distinguish between ‘legislative drafting manuals’, which tend to be exhaustive in covering a wide range of points in considerable detail, and ‘legislative drafting guides’ which tend to be shorter in length and are not usually meant to be as exhaustive in scope. I go on to explore the questions of authorship and of readership in relation to legal drafting guides and manuals. I then examine the interpersonal features to be found in the online booklet 'Plain Language and Legislation' published by the Scottish Government in 2006.

In many countries in continental Europe the simple present is extensively used in main clauses in legislative texts to express obligation. Several English-speaking legal systems have witnessed an increased usage of the simple present in legal English over the last few decades, largely at the expense of shall. I examine the continuing debate among law scholars and writers of legal drafting manuals over the adoption of the simple present in prescriptive texts in English. I conclude by observing that the decision in some countries to do away with shall would appear to be linked principally to socio-pragmatic factors relating to the way this modal auxiliary is perceived in many parts of the English-speaking world today, that is, as being outdated and smacking of “legalese”, a style of legal writing that plain language exponents have been trying to eliminate.

Abstract Seven years have passed since ‘Legal English and Plain Language: an introduction’ (Williams 2004) was published. Since then several changes have occurred in the field of legal drafting in English-speaking countries and institutions which move in the direction of the proposals endorsed by the Plain language movement. In this paper I attempt to outline and contextualize some of the major changes that have taken place since 2004. Probably the most striking transformation over the last few years in the English-speaking world has come about in the United Kingdom, particularly in Edinburgh and Westminster. In 2004 the newly-established Scottish Parliament had not yet broached the question of modernizing the drafting style of its laws. But that was shortly to come. Likewise in Westminster in 2004, with the exception of the Tax Law Rewrite Project (Williams 2007), there was little to indicate that the drafting of legislation was to undergo the major changes that have taken place recently. A number of areas of legal language have also been modernized in the United States in the past few years, though the impact of Plain language on legislative drafting has been less incisive when compared to the UK. My main conclusion is that, if we observe the question of legal drafting and Plain language in the English-speaking world as a whole, there has been a shift of focus since 2004. Not long ago I spoke of a “North-South divide” (Williams 2006: 239), with innovation coming largely from the southern hemisphere (especially Australia and New Zealand) whilst the northern hemisphere – particularly the US and the UK – appeared to be more resistant to change. Today my perception is rather different: I would be more inclined to distinguish between national drafting bodies as ‘innovators’ and international drafting bodies as ‘conservatives’. The changes in drafting style that have occurred recently in the UK and, to some extent, in the US would not appear to have been matched in those international bodies where English is one of the official languages, notably the United Nations and the European Union. I briefly analyse why international bodies may be less inclined than national bodies to change their drafting styles.

I outline some of the challenges for teachers and researchers of ESP in this period of prolonged economic crisis from the perspective of someone who has taught English for law students and political science students for many years, is editor of the journal ESP Across Cultures, and is Head of the Language Centre of Foggia University. I focus on three issues: 1) teaching LSP at university level in a context of contradictory pressures coming from ministerial insistence on internationalization of Italian universities in an increasingly globalized world while drastically reducing funding at all levels; 2) research in ESP, where I outline the vibrancy of ESP studies despite the economic hardships, but I surmise that this is partly the result of a shift towards providing practical language skills for future professionals in line with the marketization of tertiary education; 3) the emerging role of CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning), where in Italy it is now law to provide part of secondary school tuition of a non-language subject in a foreign language: I outline the ways in which ESP and CLIL can mutually complement each other. I conclude by arguing that the future looks bright for ESP studies despite the economic crisis.

In this chapter 2 I try to account for the specific configuration of the popularization of legal discourse with respect to the popularization of other types of discourse, notably scientific discourse. This entails delineating the particularity of law as a body of knowledge and popular perceptions about law and legal professionals with respect to the particularity of science as a body of knowledge and popular perceptions about science and scientists. I illustrate some of the ways in which legal discourse permeates people’s daily lives. After briefly defining ‘popularization’ and ‘legal discourse’, I explore the historical dimension of the popularization of law. I also look at the role of education in the popularization of law and science. I then outline the phenomenon of ‘law and Plain language’ and the objectives of the Plain language movement. In my conclusions I assess the extent to which law and Plain language coincides with the popularization of law. My analysis is based mainly on the English-speaking world, though I include occasional references to other countries – notably Italy, China and Japan – for illustrative or comparative purposes.

In my paper I first give a synopsis of the state of the art in ESP, briefly outlining the ways in which it has developed and the role it plays today in academia and in foreign language teaching. I then suggest some of the ways in which ESP studies might evolve in the future, focusing in particular on the following: 1) the need for deeper engagement with non-linguistic fields of knowledge (medicine, law, engineering, economics etc.) and for more dialogue with practitioners operating in such fields; 2) the importance of studying and teaching popularized forms of specialized discourse; 3) exploring (and exploiting) further the phenomenon of multimodality in relation to ESP studies; 4) the potential of Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL / EMILE) as a tool for research and for language teaching methodology in the field of ESP; 5) the need to ensure that future ESP studies focus on what is genuinely innovative, relevant, and interesting to readers and practitioners. The main purpose of this paper is to give a succinct (and hence non-exhaustive) overview of ESP studies past, present and future. It is aimed in particular at scholars who may be approaching ESP for the first time or whose knowledge of ESP is relatively limited. At the end of the bibliographical references I provide an Appendix with a list of journals devoted to research in ESP and related areas.

This brief article is part of the editorial introduction to the two-volume special issue on English for Specific Purposes: Redefining the State of the Art coedited by Emilia Di Martino, Gabriella Di Martino and Christopher Williams

In this brief article I focus on the possible implications of Brexit in terms of what might happen to the status of the English language in the EU.