A lexico-grammatical comparison of statutory law and popular written language

While the plain language movement has shed light on lack of readability statutory texts for lay person, there been a empirical methodology employed to determine ways in which differs lexico-grammatically from forms popular that are familiar person. With this mind, present study conducts comparative analysis and other written (i.e., corpus news reports, sports encyclopedia articles, historical articles) with two goals: 1) provide detailed lexico-grammatical description law independent legal writing, 2) identify pervasive features person relatively less exposure comparison registers. Following bottom-up selection analysis, key feature is used linguistic more relative as measured through Cohen’s d effect sizes. Results reveal use passive voice, prepositions, variety coordinating conjunctions, pied-piping wh-relative clause construction, non-finite -ing -ed constructions language. These results complement previous research regarding characteristic help potentially contribute law.