Abstract
Legal English, also known as Language of the Law (Mellinkoff, 2004), is an dispensible factor contributing to the development of legal field. At Hanoi Law University, Legal English is a compulsory subject in the syllabus of legal English majors and International Trade Law majors. The question that what obstacles students face when dealing with legal English, however, has not been fully answered at this institution. This present research,which makes use of survey questionnaires as the main method, aims to study the challenges of learning legal English from the students’ perspective. The results indicate notable difficulties arising from the distinctive characteristics of legal English, differences in legal systems between jurisdictions and insufficient background knowledge of the laws. It is expected that these findings propose a number of practical recommendations in order to improve the effectiveness of the process of learning and teaching legal English.
Highlights
Legal English is a form of English used in the field of law of England, America and other countries whose official language is English (Veretina-Chiriac, 2012)
The findings showed that the difficulties in learning legal English primarily arose from the legal terms and the differences in the legal systems between Russia and the UK
It is obvious that most students surveyed were self-conscious that legal English was of great importance
Summary
Legal English is a form of English used in the field of law of England, America and other countries whose official language is English (Veretina-Chiriac, 2012). Legal English is a specialized language for legal purposes, which is basically used by legal professionals such as lawyers; judges; prosecutors, etc., in their work (Goga-Vigaru, 2015). It is undeniable that in the era of globalization, exposure to different legal systems requires legal practitioners to communicate successfully in English using the appropriate legal language and terminology. Most of international conventions, international treaties, constitutions, regulations are written in English (Garner, 1989). It is necessary that legal experts both master knowledge of law and have a good command of legal English. Including legal English into the curriculum of law schools throughout the world, is becoming of great importance (Supardi, 2013)
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