Post by Stephen Horowitz, Lecturer of Legal English
Check out Georgetown Law Faculty’s Best Reads of 2024, where various Georgetown faculty shared their favorite books or articles from the past year.
I always appreciate a chance to learn what my colleagues are reading and finding interesting. And this year, I appreciate that they included two submissions related to language and law:
The first (nominated by me) is a law review article by Elizabeth R. Baldwin of the University of Washington School of Law titled “Beyond Contrastive Rhetoric: Helping International Lawyers Use Cohesive Devices in U.S. Legal Writing“
“By identifying and explaining the linguistic concepts that make up cohesion in writing, Baldwin provides the tools (if you know how to use them) for giving teachers and students (especially international students) objective criteria for understanding and applying the magic glue of cohesion in their own writing, rather than having to rely on subjective or metaphorical instructions that require a shared cultural context between teacher and student.”
The second, nominated by Kevin Tobia, is an article titled “So Much for Plain Language: An Analysis of the Accessibility of U.S. Federal Laws Over Time” by Eric Martínez, Francis Mollica and Edward Gibson. Here’s the accompanying comment from Kevin:
“This is one of my favorite papers of 2024, which succeeds in pursuing a fundamental question of practical and theoretical significance with new empirical methods. Martínez et al. examine the success of the plain language movement by studying a dataset of the text of every law passed by Congress between 1951 and 2009. They compare statutory language to language in other genres, clarifying what makes the former difficult for ordinary Americans to understand.”
Enjoy! And wishing everyone a peaceful, lawful, and happy 2025!
