Legal linguistics challenges: legal language adaptation in the framework of the Russian Federation language policy

Abstract

The article studies the problem of comprehensibility of the modern legal language of the Russian Federation from the point of view of an ordinary citizen. The authors define a concept of law from the linguistic level and summarize the existing theories concerning the problem of the legal language adaptation. Two legal and technical methods of addressing to federal executive bodies are discussed and compared. It is highlighted that imperfection of legal texts within a linguistic aspect is directly related to the uncertainty and vague designation of the federal executive and legislative bodies, the duality of definitions used and the excessive complexity of syntactic structures. Taking into account the experience of the Administrative Reform and the achieved results of the study, it is offered to work out a new direction of the Federal Language Policy for the development of legal culture, improve the law-making process and quality of laws. It is also proved that legal language should be adapted according needs and concerns of an ordinary citizen of the country in order to avoid legal illiteracy.