Acceso usuarios
József Álmos Katona, Zoltán Bódi
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.
