https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2282-576X
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ABSTRACT
This paper discusses the ‘fuzziness’ of Hungarian legal language as an issue of language planning addressed in the Hungarian language strategy to be published by the Hungarian Research Centre for Language Planning. First, we give a concise historical overview on the status of Hungarian language in Hungary, only to make it evident how its status had a direct effect on its legal language variant, and how the characteristics of Hungarian legal language are determined by these diachronic changes even today. Second, we cannot ignore the theoretical background of legal language(s), for there are some universal traits that are present regardless of language and as such they are the fundamentals for clear writing incentives. Third, we treat clear writing incentives as language planning programmes aimed at solving issues of legal language or legal language use. These movements receive much criticism (many times rightfully so) because they lack a clear-cut theoretical basis – something we were keen to avoid. Fourth, we introduce the sources of our clear writing practices in a comparative manner, thus comparing our current clear writing programmes to that of the European Union’s Clear Writing and the United States’ Federal Plain Language Guidelines of the Plain Language Action and Information Network (PLAIN). We conclude our paper by outlining further research, monitoring necessities, and opportunities for international cooperation.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Established by Government Regulation No. 1098/2014 (III/4) of Hungary
2 It should be noted that Assy (Citation2011) is also taking a pragmatic approach but despite raising valuable arguments, falls short on elaborating on them in our opinion.
3 It should be noted that such a guideline has not yet been officially published as of the writing of this paper. The reason for this is simple, it is a document for internal use only, and the basis for two private commissions: one by the National Office for the Judiciary (NOJ) for a style book on clear writing, another by the National Tax and Customs Administration for a guideline and an expansive clear writing training that started in 2019 and is still ongoing. Therefore, this is the first time some of the contents of the CWGH is indirectly made public.
4 See for instance the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Directive (Directive 93/13/EEC, Articles 4 and 5) and the Directive on Consumer Rights (Directive 2011/83/EU, Articles 5 and 6).
5 The training started in the second half of 2019, and so far approximately 3000 employees have participated in it (this accounts for 18–20% of all employees).
6 It should be noted that Hungarian has a different phrasal and predicate structure than, for instance, Neo-Latin or Germanic languages. The predicate can also be a noun, so Hungarian can easily construct sentences literally without any verbs (including, that without the need for any auxiliary verb). Thus, nominal style is even more prevalent in Hungarian legal language, and this is realised by the European Commission’s 24 Clear Writing tips, which includes one tip for each language: for Hungarian it is to prefer verbs to nouns. (EU24CW)
7 The Miskolc Legal Corpus is the first large corpus of Hungarian legal texts, containing 2.4 million words and 150,000 sentences. When preparing the corpus, the researchers aimed at covering as large a segment of the Hungarian legal language as possible. Therefore, in addition to the code law and other legislation, they selected the texts of court judgments, ministerial justifications of legislation, coursebooks of universities of law, and collected discourses from online legal forums. In addition, transcripts of audio recordings of trials and police interrogations were used (Vincze, Citation2018, p. 10).
8 The Ministry of Culture’s Executive Order no. 178 of 9.3.2009 on the Danish Language Council’s activities and structure https://www.retsinformation.dk/Forms/R0710.aspx?id=123673
10 Decree 94-665 on the use of the French language https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/loda/id/LEGITEXT000005616341
Additional information
Notes on contributors
József Álmos Katona
Katona, József Álmos, Linguist, PhD candidate, research area: language skill assessment and reading comprehension, legal language and clear writing, translation theory of literary translations. Former Director and Research Associate of the Research Centre for Language Planning, Institute for Hungarian Studies.
Zoltán Bódi
Bódi, Zoltán, Linguist, PhD, research area: language usage and communication of the Internet, New Media, Plain Language and Clear Writing of the Public Administrations. Senior Research Associate of the Research Centre for Language Planning, Institute for Hungarian Studies and associate professor at the University of Theatre and Film Arts.