There is a sample below: The terms and conditions contained herein, including the appendices hereto, shall constitute the entire agreement between the parties hereto and shall supercede any and all previous oral and written notices, memoranda, documents, agreements and contracts between the parties.
In upper sentence, word term and condition are a group of synonyms, both of them have the meaning of“条件、条款”which is used constantly in contract. The most frequently seen are: amendments to or alterations of—修改; buy or purchase—购买; force and effect—效力; fulfill or perform—履行;null and void—无效;own or possess—拥有;provisions and stipulations—条款;furnish and provide—提供;acknowledge and confess—承认;pardon and forgive—宽恕; fraud and deceit—欺骗;cease and desist—制止;claim or allegation—宣称。And so on. Some of the conjunctional phrases are conventional while others are made for exact and indisputable wording.
Parallel structure is prominent in enumerating concrete terms and conditions of a policy or contract. There is a sample below:
“Errors and irregularities in the manner in which the testimony is transcribed or the deposition is prepared, signed, certified, sealed, indorsed, transmitted, filed, or other wise dealt with by the officer under Rules 30 and 31are Waived unless a motion to suppress the deposition or some part thereof is made with proper promptness after such a defect is, or with the diligence might have been, ascertained.”
(Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, 1990)
In the upper sentence, it used eight parallel verbs, which is forbidden in normal use of daily English, but this way of parallel structure is usual seen in legal English. The reason of this phenomenon is the need of preciseness in legal English which need to proof any weakness of expression.
2.3.2 Parallel sentences
There is a sample below:
It is also sufficient if service of the summons and complaints is made :(A) in the manner prescribed by the law of the foreign country for service in that country an action in any of its court s of general jurisdiction; or(B) as directed by the foreign authority in response to letter rogatory, when service in either case is reasonably calculated to give actual notice; or(C) upon a n individual personally, and upon a corporation or partnership or association, by delivery to an officer, a managing or general agent; or(D)…;or(E)…
In the upper sample, it used lots of parallel clauses such as that clause. We don’t use this kind of parallel in daily English, because daily English need different and changeable structures in sentence. When we use the same sentence structures, this would give us a feeling about tediousness, but this a usual usage in legal English.
2.4 Tendency to meticulous way of expression
Another way to achieve exactness of reference and to evade any possible misinterpretation is to be extremely detailed in expression lest there should arise anything disputable concerning the stipulations on rights or obligations [7]. Take the definitions about person and occupying for instance:
Person --means a natural person and not a corporation, partnership, association or business name.
Occupying (the owned motor vehicle) -- means in or upon or entering into or alighting from (the owned motor vehicle).
Here is another example:
It refers to the fight of the employer to execute the works on, over, under, in, or through the land.
By such wording, each and every circumstance concerning the use of land are taken into consideration and placed under stipulation. The same is true with the coordination of predicators:
The contractor shall give notice to the engineer whenever any part of the works of foundations is or are ready or about to be ready for examination.
To see the meticulous way of expression by lawyers, we would like to conclude this chapter with the first article of a gentleman's last will and testament:
I hereby give, devise, and bequeath all of my estate, real, personal and mixed, of every nature, kind and description, wherever situated and however held, which is or may be subject to my testamentary disposition at the time of my death, to my wife, outright if she is living at the time of my death; if she is not then living I give said property to those of my children who then are living in shares of equal value determined by them, or in event of their failure to agree before the expiration of six months from the date of appointment of my Executor, then in equal shares valued and determined by my Executor, but so that the children of any deceased child of mine shall take equally between them the share in which their parent would have taken if surviving me.
2.5 Frequent use of archaic words and phrases
In order to render the legal documents highly formal and dignified, lawyers often employ words and phrases that are unique to this variety. As a highly formal written language the other characteristic of legal English is using a large amount of archaic words and phrases (A.D 1100years ago) what were used to repeat the key words of articles. The most popular archaic style words and phrases are transformed from here, there and where, what were added one or few prepositions to construct a compound adverb. Words like herein, hereto, hereof, hereinafter, hereby, hereinabove, hereon, heretofore, thereafter, thereby, therefore (not to be confused with therefore ), thereinafter, thereof, thereto, there-under, whereby, whereof where-on ; phrases like forever in fee simple, in witness whereof, legally selected and possessed of, of sound and disposing mind, at the time of my death, upon his official bond , ere, are well studded in legal documents; they are either unique to legal English or are endowed with a strong legal flavor. For instance, there is a legal text below:
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