Legal and linguistic uncertainty of terms and norms of Russian laws

Cover Page

Cite item

Full Text

Abstract

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.

About the authors

Marina V. Batyushkina

Legislative Assembly of the Omsk Region

Author for correspondence.
Email: soulangeana@mail.ru

Сandidate of Pedagogy, consultant of the Department of Linguistic Expertise of the Legal Department of the Legislative Assembly of the Omsk Region, member of the Scientific and Methodological Council of the Guild of Linguistic Experts in Documentation and Information Disputes (GLEDID).

1 Krasnyi Put' St, Omsk, 644002, Russian Federation

References

  1. Alekseev, S.S. (1981). General theory of law (vol. 1). Moscow: Yuridicheskaya literatura Publ. (In Russ.)
  2. Alontseva, N.V., Ermoshin, Y.A. (2018). Special aspects of working with the lexical level of legal discourse texts in the English and Russian languages. RUDN Journal of Language Studies, Semiotics and Semantics, 9(2), 365–378. http://dx.doi.org/10.22363/2313-2299-2018-9-2-365-378
  3. Barabash, O.V. (2015). “Corruption factor” as a legal term: Structure, content, definition. University proceedings. Volga region. Humanities, 4(36), 156–164. (In Russ.)
  4. Baranov, V.M. (2014). Lawmaking concretization: Negative perspective. Bulletin of the Nizhny Novgorod Academy of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia, 2(26), 9–22. (In Russ.)
  5. Batyushkinа, M.V. (2021). Glossary of terms of Russian legislation: More than 6000 terms. Moscow: Flinta Publ. (In Russ.)
  6. Belokon, N.V. (2012). Legal and linguistic uncertainty: The content of the concept. Bulletin of the Voronezh State University, (1), 46–54. (In Russ.)
  7. Bix, B.N. (1991). H.L.A. Hart and the «open texture» of language. Law and Philosophy, 10(1), 51–72.
  8. Culver, K. (2004). Varieties of vagueness. University of Toronto Law Journal, (54.1), 109–127.
  9. Galyashina, E.I. (2020). Linguistic examination of regulatory legal acts as a means of preventing corruption. Economic Security Bulletin, (2), 147–151. (In Russ.)
  10. Golev, N.D. (2015). Legal terminology in the context of doctrinal interpretation. Siberian Journal of Philology, (4), 138–148. (In Russ.)
  11. Golub, N.N., & Osadchii, M.A. (2011). Fuzzy determinants in the aspect of meaning derivation. Actual Problems of Modern Word Formation: Collection of Scientific Articles. Kemerovo. (In Russ.)
  12. Hutton, C. (1988). Law lessons for linguistics? Accountability and acts of professional classification. International Linguistics: A First Reader. Oxford: Pergamon.
  13. Iering, R. von. (1905). Legal technique (F.S. Shendorf, Trans.). Saint Petersburg. (In Russ.)
  14. Kabanov, P.A. (2014). Legal and linguistic uncertainty as a subject of anti-corruption expertise of regulatory legal acts and draft regulatory legal acts. Administrative Law and Administration Practice, (3), 61–71. (In Russ.)
  15. Knutov, A.V., & Plaksin, S.M. (2020). The complexity of Russian laws. Parsing experience. Moscow: Publishing House of the Higher School of Economics. (In Russ.)
  16. Kuznetsov, S.A., & Solovev, A.A. (2019). The Constitution of the Russian Federation in the aspect of requirements for the Russian language as a state language. Bulletin of the Volgograd State University. Series 2. Linguistics, 18(2), 27–36. (In Russ.)
  17. Lukyanenko, M.F. (2010). Evaluative concepts of civil law: Rationality, good faith, materiality. Moscow: Statut Publ. (In Russ.)
  18. Ogleznev, V.V. (2020). “Open structure” of legal concepts and the theory of semantic prototypes. Bulletin of Tomsk State University, (452), 94–98. (In Russ.)
  19. Rodionova, O.N. (2015). Legal and linguistic uncertainty. Russian Legal Journal, 4(103), 151–154. (In Russ.)
  20. Rybakov, O.Yu., & Rybakova, O.S. (2020). Language paradigms of overcoming the uncertainty of the legal norm. In O.N. Kiyanova et al. (Eds), Questions of the Law of the State Language and the Language of Law. Moscow; Berlin: Direct Media Publ. (In Russ.)
  21. Shaklein, V.M. (2018). Compressed text in modern linguistic culture. Dynamics of Linguistic and Cultural Processes in Modern Russia, (6), 551–556. (In Russ.)
  22. Tolstik, V.A. (2016). Requirements for legal terminology: formal-logical and socio-cultural rationale. Legal Technique, (10), 302–307. (In Russ.)
  23. Vlasenko, N.A. (2017). The categories “uncertainty” and “certainty” in the study of modern law. Bulletin of the Nizhny Novgorod Academy of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia, 1(37), 8–17. (In Russ.)

Copyright (c) 2021 Batyushkina M.V.

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

This website uses cookies

You consent to our cookies if you continue to use our website.

About Cookies