摘 要

法律英语是经济全球化趋势下不可忽视的学科之一。近年来，随着对国际化法律专业人才需求的提高，我国学者对法律英语的学习和研究也在如火如荼地进行。以往的研究表明，同义词的使用是法律英语的重要特征之一，同义词的准确选用是长期以来学者研究和学习的一道鸿沟，当研究者面临选词困难时往往会根据直觉选用自己比较熟悉的词汇从而对表意准确造成一定程度上的影响。但是各界对同义词的使用方面的研究亟待重视，此方面的研究不够深入和具体。

本文以《联合国安全理事会决议》（2018）为研究对象，统计并分析其中同义词的使用情况，归纳总结出该文本中同义词的使用规律，为法律英语的学习者提供参考和借鉴。《联合国安全理事会决议》（2018）总词数为139573。随机抽样分析得出，在该文件中平均每10,000个词中存在23处同义词使用的情况。研究发现，法律英语中存在同义词并列使用、词汇选择严谨、同义词使用频繁三大特征。同义词的使用使法律语言更具模糊性、准确性和权威性。

关键词：法律英语；同义词；词语选择

Abstract

Legal English is one of the research fields which cannot be ignored under the trend of economic globalization. With the increasing demand for international law professionals, the study and research on legal English by Chinese scholars are in full swing during these years. Previous studies have shown that the frequency of synonyms is an important character of legal English, and the accurate selection of synonyms has been a gap in the study of scholars for a long time. When faced with the difficulty of word choice, researchers tend to choose the words they are familiar with intuitively, thus affecting the accuracy of ideographic expression to a certain extent. It is urgent to pay attention to the research on the use of synonyms in legal English.

This paper discusses the use of synonyms in the text statistically and summarizes the characteristics of synonyms based on United Nations Security Council Resolution (2018). So as to provide reference for legal English learners. There are 139,573 words totally in the documents. According to incomplete statistics, 23 synonyms were used for every 10,000 words in the document on average. It is found that synonyms parallel, rigorous words choice and frequency of synonyms are the three main Characteristics of legal English. The use of synonyms is to make legal language more ambiguous, accurate and authoritative.

Key Words: legal English, synonym, word choice

Contents

1 Introduction 1

1.1 Research background 1

1.2 Research methodology 3

1.3 Aim of study 3

2 Literature review 5

3 Characteristics of synonyms in legal English 7

3.1 Synonyms parallel 7

3.2 Rigorous words choice 9

3.3 Synonyms frequency 10

4 Functions of synonyms in legal English 13

4.1 Ambiguity 13

4.2 Accuracy 13

4.3 Authority 15

5 Conclusion 17

References 18

Acknowledgements 19

Appendix 20

Research on the Characteristics of Synonyms in Legal English：the Case Study of United Nations Security Council Resolution (2018)

Introduction

Research background

According to professor William McKay(Mckay, 2005), legal English is a practical interdisciplinary subject combining legal science and English linguistics which is an essential branch of ESP (English for Specific Purpose) with its unique form of formation. David, a professor at the university of California puts forward the expression “legal English”. Legal English is an instrumental language which mainly refers to English that used by native speakers of the common law countries. International organizations’ law researchers, judges and lawyers and other legal workers in the law are the main users of legal English (李剑波, 2003).

Definitions of synonym vary from one to another and still developing. Here are two authoritative definitions. According to Jackson Howord (Jackson, H,1988), synonyms are words which could be used interchangeably in all sentence context. Arppe acclaimed that a synonym is a perceived meaning contains the highest degree of interchangeability and will not change the utterance under relevant context. The common point of their definition is interchangeability. According to Merrium Webster’s Dictionary of Synonyms, the first work of English synonyms is the Difference between words Esteemed Synonymous by John Trusler which based on Abbe Gbriel Girard’ theory. From my point of view, synonyms refer to words that express the same idea but have subtle semantic or stylistic differences. The commonality between synonyms is that they express the same concept, but there are subtle differences in the scope of collocation or intention between the same concept. As far as I'm concerned, two words which could be used interchangeably do not exist.

Synonyms can be subdivided into strict synonyms and loss synonyms (廖秋玲, 2015). Strict synonyms also called absolute synonyms. And loss synonyms called approximate synonyms. Due to absolute synonyms usually do not exist. Therefore, the research in this paper is based on approximate synonyms. Synonyms in legal English is mainly to make the expression of legal English more accurate and authoritative through ambiguity and other writing techniques. Synonyms could be discriminated from several aspects including language scope, sentimental color, word combination and so on.

As we all know, United Nations Security Council Resolution is international legal documents updated in real time. The interpretation of the documents is conducive to the learning of legal English in the new age and to promote the world's understanding of the current international situation. The rapid development of China's economy is inseparable from the construction of the legal system.

With the continuous promotion of the strategy of law and the deepening of the thinking of law, the national awareness of rules has been constantly strengthened. Chinese legal consciousness has increased under the pressure of foreign countries. The interpretation of international legal documents is of great significance to the development of China's law and society. Legal language requires accuracy, preciseness and conciseness. Among them, synonyms are frequently used in legal English. Yet it is of great significance to study the use of synonyms in legal English.

From the stylistics point of view, the style of legal English belongs to the style of official documents. From the perspective of lexicology, legal vocabulary is a basic unit of legal English. The richness of the English vocabulary decides the different stylistic functions. The use of synonyms is a prominent feature in legal English. In legal English, synonyms are sometimes used to distinguish the meanings between those words which share similar meanings, and sometimes to emphasize a certain meaning. One is to emphasize the difference between different synonyms, the other focus on the same meaning of synonyms (张妍, 2018). All in all, the study of synonyms in legal English will be of great significance to the study of legal English.

In the process of cultivation, it is necessary to mention the features of legal English. The strict selection of synonyms is one of the prominent features of legal English. In ordinary style, synonyms are often used interchangeably without affecting the original meaning of the expression. Like “beautiful”, “excellent”, “gorgeous” etc. can be used to express a happy mood. But in the legal English, words look similar but have specific connotation. The ignorance of words choice is easy to produce ambiguity. For example, these two words, “violate” and “breach” share the same meaning in a sense. But their usage is totally different in legal English. As a result, legal English synonyms in the correct selection of the accuracy of legal English plays an important role.

According to the strict interpretation principle, the written text is the only basis for the judge to interpret the legal documents when applying the law. The legal expression takes accuracy as the basic criterion and requirement in terms of the authority and seriousness. It is this kind of accuracy that makes the law have the authority of "saying one thing but saying another", and also makes the law have absolute guarantee for the content and field it regulates, so that the effectiveness of the law can be brought into play. Therefore, the wording of legal language must be highly accurate. Descriptive adjectives are rarely used in legal language, especially in legislative language. On contrary, adverbs such as time, scope and degree are strictly used to avoid unnecessary ambiguity.

1.2 Research methodology

In this paper, archival research, interdisciplinary research, and quantitative research methodologies are used. Archival research method refers to the method of obtaining information through literature according to the necessary research topic so as to comprehensively and correctly master the research topic. Interdisciplinary research method refers to the systematic use of interdisciplinary knowledge for the integration of new knowledge, so as to form a unified whole. Quantitative research method refers to the research on the relationship between the number and scope of research objects in order to find their mutual relations and change rules. Experience summarizing method is to summarize the fragmentary research facts and make them systematized and theorized so as to promote them.