Defining Legal Vagueness: A Contradiction in Terms?
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Patrizia Anesa
Patrizia Anesa holds a PhD in English Studies from the University of Verona. She is a member of the Research Centre on Specialized Discourse (CERLIS) at the University of Bergamo, where she teaches English Language and Translation. Her research interests lie mostly in the area of specialized discourse, with particular reference to legal language and courtroom communication. She also cooperates with a number of international organizations and institutions as a consultant in the field of Discourse, Conversation and Frame Analysis.
Abstract
Indeterminacy is an apparently unavoidable aspect of legal language and this paper aims to offer a taxonomical review of concepts related to linguistic and legal indeterminacy, with particular reference to the phenomenon of vagueness. Starting from the consideration that the notion of legal vagueness is itself intrinsically vague and extremely multifaceted, this study describes the main functions of vagueness and its connection with related phenomena such as ambiguity, contestability, and fuzziness. More specifically, the focus is on legislative texts, and illustrative examples are taken from the EU Directive 2011/92 on the assessment of the effects of certain public and private projects on the environment. Vagueness is here seen as an inherent feature of legal language rather than a threat to the rule of law. The paper illustrates the rationales behind different forms of legal and linguistic indeterminacy and, in particular, offers considerations on how vague choices may be exploited to shape normative texts.
About the author
Patrizia Anesa holds a PhD in English Studies from the University of Verona. She is a member of the Research Centre on Specialized Discourse (CERLIS) at the University of Bergamo, where she teaches English Language and Translation. Her research interests lie mostly in the area of specialized discourse, with particular reference to legal language and courtroom communication. She also cooperates with a number of international organizations and institutions as a consultant in the field of Discourse, Conversation and Frame Analysis.
©2014 by Walter de Gruyter Berlin/Boston
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- State v. Estate: Jane Austen and the Law of Inheritance
- Women, Property and Identity in Victorian Legal Culture: Wilkie Collins's The Woman in White
- Interrelations Between Law and Culture: Iain M. Banks's The Player of Games
- Working at the Intersection of the Humanities, Law and Technology: Digital Humanities and the ``Two Cultures''
- For a New Semantics of Differences: Cultural Exception and the Law
- True Blood: Multicultural Vampires in Contemporary Society
- Research
- Legal Liturgies: The Aesthetic Foundation of Positive Law
- Modernity, Experience, and the Law in The Education of Henry Adams
- Violation of Human Rights in Holocaust/Post-Holocaust Era
- Defining Legal Vagueness: A Contradiction in Terms?
- Book Review
- Book Review
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Focus
- Focus: Law, Literature and (Popular) Culture
- State v. Estate: Jane Austen and the Law of Inheritance
- Women, Property and Identity in Victorian Legal Culture: Wilkie Collins's The Woman in White
- Interrelations Between Law and Culture: Iain M. Banks's The Player of Games
- Working at the Intersection of the Humanities, Law and Technology: Digital Humanities and the ``Two Cultures''
- For a New Semantics of Differences: Cultural Exception and the Law
- True Blood: Multicultural Vampires in Contemporary Society
- Research
- Legal Liturgies: The Aesthetic Foundation of Positive Law
- Modernity, Experience, and the Law in The Education of Henry Adams
- Violation of Human Rights in Holocaust/Post-Holocaust Era
- Defining Legal Vagueness: A Contradiction in Terms?
- Book Review
- Book Review
