Textual-Mapping in British Legislative Writing

Abstract

Eng legislative writing has long been criticized not only for its obscure, circumlocutious, & tortuous syntax, but also for its extreme linguistic conservatism. Its critics claim that, in spite of numerous governmental & social pressures, the style of legislative drafting has largely remained unchanged. However, some interesting attempts have come from within the drafting community in recent years to make their writing more readable without sacrificing their defensive & detailed mode of drafting. One such trend is to reduce information load at a particular point by making use of what might be called textual-mapping devices. This helps the draftsman not only to postpone or avoid specification of complicating legal content at a particular point in the legislative provision, but also to establish text-cohering links with the preceding & preceded legislation. A corpus-based detailed analysis of the use of textual-mapping devices is presented, considering particularly their formal realization & the textual patterns they display in the expression of the legislative statement. HA.