Linguistic Aspects of Legal Writing (Case Study of the Word “Zavedomo” and Phrase “Znal ili Dolzhen Byl Znat” in the Civil Code of the Russian Federation)

УДК 659, ББК 81.1

Abstract

The article discusses one of the research areas of applied linguistics – legal linguistics, in particular, its hermeneutical aspect. Our focus is on the functioning of language units in the legal discourse, based on the fact that the latter includes not only merely legal but also linguistic aspects because the language is a means to express certain phenomena, and the criteria of accuracy, consistency, comprehensibility for a non-specialist are important aspects of law drafting methodology. The subject of linguistic study is the functioning of the lexical unit zavedomo in the Russian legal discourse. The article points at the nature of usage of the lexical unit zavedomo in the Family Code and in the Civil Code of the Russian Federation. Special attention is paid to the wordings of Article 174 of the Civil Code (“Consequences of failure by a representative or a body of a legal entity to meet the conditions regulating the discharge of authority or interests of the represented or of the legal entity”) and to potential changes in interpretation subject to this lexical unit presence / absence. The article analyses the viewpoints of law experts (V. A. Belov, O. V. Berg, K. A. Gorbatov, S. L. Budylin) as to how significant the presence / absence of this lexical unit in the text of the above-mentioned law is, and also as to the reasons behind the wording of Article 174 of the Civil Code, the rationale behind the wording, and whether the meaning of the law undergoes any material changes because of it, as to the semantics and the function of the word zavedomo in the Russian legal discourse, and what linguistic aspects of law drafting methodology should be taken into account in such cases, and also what external factors may have an impact on the language of laws. The article includes a detailed discussion of the semantics of the zavedomo lexical unit, and emphasises the fact that the zavedomo lexical unit has become juridified under the influence of Article 307 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (“Wilfully false testimony, expert / specialist opinion or mistranslation”). The analysis of contexts where the zavedomo lexical unit is used in the Russian legal discourse has showed that it is most frequently used as part of the structure znal ili dolzhen byl znat. Hence, we consider the legally binding type of obligation modality. In the case study of the zavedomo lexical unit and predicates of obligation (“must”) and possibility (“could”), we analyse challenges of copying English structures (“was aware or must have been aware”) into the Russian legal discourse, and also raise issues of linguistic examination of legal texts.