Deontic meanings in Philippine contracts

Abstract

Abstract Modality, from the cognitive linguists’ perspective, relates to a “speaker’s assessment of, or attitude towards, the potentiality of a state of affairs” (Radden and Dirven, 2007, p. 233, Cognitive English grammar. USA: John Benjamins Publishing Company). A type of modality that is very much visible in contracts is the deontic modality. A considerable body of literature, various empirical studies and actual Philippine court cases put forward how deontic uses in legal documents such as contracts can bring about issues and confusion leading to comprehension problems. Contract drafting entails a specialized work that a legal drafter must be able to write assessable and comprehensible contracts. This study addressed how contractual modalities are interpreted in the Philippine context and investigated how the most commonly misused modal shall is employed in different Philippine contracts. In examining deontic meanings, this work attempted to address the following questions: 1) What modals/non-modals are employed in expressing the meanings of obligation, permission and prohibition in selected Philippine contracts? 2) How is the modal shall utilized in the given contracts? Matulewska’s (2010, Deontic modality and modals in the language of contracts. Comparative Legilinguistics 75–92) work on the three deontic meanings of obligation, permission and prohibition and Stark’s (2007, Drafting contracts – How and why lawyers do what they do. USA: Aspen Publishers) construct on the correct usage of shall in contracts served as frameworks of this study. Results reveal the concurrence or likeness in the use of modals of these contracts vis-a-vis the local codified laws and in a number of contracts in other countries (Bondi and Diani, 2010. Conveying deontic values in English and Italian contracts: A cross-cultural analysis. ESP Across Cultures 7. Retrieved from http://edipuglia.it/wp-content/uploads/ESP%202010/Bondi-Diani.pdf). More importantly, two central findings of this study have uncovered the differences on the rules and at the same time the overwhelming number of incorrect shall uses, resulting in misunderstanding of the contracts, as reflected in a number of Philippine legal cases filed in court.