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Recently, with the increase of cooperation among countries in the fields of economy, politics as well as science and technology, more and more linguists and scholars undertake the study of legal English. When discussing the styles of legal English, many scholars take high frequency of passive voice as one of its syntactic features. But the author finds the absence of this feature in some international conventions,  which employ  more  active  voice rather than passive  voice. 

1.1 Rationale of the Study

Law plays a significant role in protecting a citizen's right, regulating people's behavior and stabilizing society. It even maintains international peace and security.. Law does have an invisible but tremendous power. However, the concepts of law are accessible only through language. That is, language should have power. But, how does legal language express its power? And in what conditions does legal language show its power? Bearing these questions in mind, the author explores this thesis.

1.1.1 The Importance of Legal Language

Law forms the framework within which we manage our daily lives, including our family lives, housing and transport to the public, study and work. It permeates every corner of social fife and to some degree constructs many aspects of modern life. It guarantees the harmony of social development, protects the legitimate rights of citizens and the smooth functioning of government. It even represents national sovereignty and integrity to other nations.

Although law has great power, its functions can not be realized unless it is expressed through language, speech or writing. The British philosopher David Hume claims that law and the legal system are merely forms of language. The legal world starts with language, and the legal processes of formulation, interpretation and even enforcement are realized primarily through language (Wang Jie, 1999: p.1)'.German jurist N. MacCormick says, "the science of law is actually a legal linguistics" (Wang Jie, 1999: p.1-2). Therefore, some scholars said that the law is an overwhelmingly linguistic institution.

A famous professor of law, Peter M. Tiersma, claims in his monograph Legal Language (1999: p. 1)that, Our law is a law of words. Although there are several major sources of law in the Anglo-American tradition, all consist of words. Morality or custom may be embedded in human behavior, but law-virtually by definition-comes into being through language. Thus, the legal profession focuses intensely on the words that constitute the law, whether in the form of statutes, regulations, or just an interesting research area for linguistics. The law andits language affect the daily lives of virtually everyone in our society.

Gibbons (1994: p.1)expresses the same idea that language constructs the law...Language is then central to the law, and law as we know it inconceivable without language (Yang Min, 2007).

From the above mentioned views, it is clear that language forms the law and the legal system and law could not exist without language. Language has power. Hence, it can be said that unlike any other types of discourses, legal discourse provides a complete  and explicit cycle  of communication  to  linguists  (Yang Min,  2007). Therefore, legal discourse is a very valuable and worthwhile fi本论文由英语论文网提供整理，提供论文代写，英语论文代写，代写论文，代写英语论文，代写留学生论文，代写英文论文，留学生论文代写相关核心关键词搜索。