Article Review "Synonyms in American Legal English"

Source               : Masaryk University, Faculty of Arts

Thesis                : English Language and Literature/Bachelor’s Diploma Thesis

Title                   : Synonyms in American Legal English

Author              : Martin Vokoun

Year                  : 2012

Reviewer           : Debby Maitrisia

Date                   : 15 April 2017

1.   Background

      Synonyms in American Legal English is thesis contain material about synonyms. The first chapter is concept of synonyms, definition of synonyms, synonyms in english law, some important theorist, and introduction about legal English.

     

      Every word has a synonyms.

      But do you know that every word equation must have specific differences.

      For examples same words but differences in use of words in different situasions also same words meaning but different specific meaning.

      Sometimes many lay people are wrong in selection the use of words that are not in accordance with the circumstances.

      First chapter of this thesis is discuss about basic concepts of synonym,important theory about synonym and low theory, second is discuss about the realm of law also historical of english law, and third chapter is focus on research english linguistic of law and the use of linguistic corpus nowdays.

 2.   Discussion

      Concepts of synonym is disscus about synonymy as a general concept of sameness is discussed. First, it provides and sketches the basic issues concerning synonymy,

      through which one can understand the complicatedness of the concept. Then, it

      discusses two important theories of synonymy classification which the further

      analysis examines. The third sub-chapter provides contemplation about the

      importance of synonymy in a language.

      Sometimes language are confusing, there are so many mistakes we do when we learn about language, the first general mistake is error selection of words.

      Synonyms is study about sameness words or sameness meaning of words.

      e.g        
1. girl

      2. chick

      3. lassie  

      We know three words are same meaning but different words, but if we learn more about synonyms, the meaning of girl, chick, and lassie are different specific meaning.

      Girl is meaning for “A young or relatively young woman”.

      Chick is meaning for "A girl; a young woman. slang (orig. U.S.)."

      Lassie is meaning for “A lass, girl. Chiefly Sc”.

      There are two theorical concept of synonym which very influential for synonym

      1. David Cruse

      2. John Lyons

      Law is something important in every country, and in fact law has a specific language also connected with synonyms, but according to the study, so many word or language difficult to understand for general public or non-lawyers, while law is connected with general public and non-lawyers.

      Law language are often acquired after several years of law school studies.

      Because of that legal language noy widely used nowdays.

      Author also write about connection linguistics and technology.

      Technology development is help linguistics growth, for example, computer or smartphone are easy to used, so many application and program to correction or translate language.

      Technology of linguistic is called corpus linguistics.

      Corpus linguistic very helpful in the preparation of dictionary, grammar, translation, linguistic historical, dialectology and etc.

      But we cant trust 100% on that application or program, because not all of them can trusted and they are not perfect like we need.

      Authors discuss about verd analysis too, verb analysis actually is focus on collocational behavior in each meaning of verb.

      Collocational function is use for maping verb form of verb analysis.

      Every verb formation has three important parts :

      1. Definition

      2. Word original

      3. Hits

     

3.   Weakness

         

      1. This thesis focus on law too much and less attention about synonyms.

      2. Author write about law maybe must give more explaination because its can      help international readers/reviewers.

      3. So many example in last of this thesis but there are little explanation too.

      4. Lack of prominent interest between law and synonyms that can be understood by     ordinary people.

      5. Im sure, if ordinary people who only learn synonym without law will try so hard       to understand this thesis.

      4. Advantages

     

      1. Author good for explain about synonyms in first chapter.

      2. Author give example easy to understand.

      3. This is good thesis for a lawyers in english.

      4. Teach us to know more about verb analysis and theory of concepts synonym.

      5. Conclusion

      Basic study of synonyms have we learn in elementary school, but not all the use of synonyms are clear, because there is another more specific meaning that we dont know, like there are only words that look like, no exact words.

https://is.muni.cz/th/347656/ff_b/Bakalarska_prace.pdf