If there’s one common denominator with legal documents, it’s how difficult they are for mere mortals to read and/or understand. Sure, you’ve probably wondered more than once whether the person writing these endless paragraphs has a really boring life or wants to get back at the world for some reason. The truth is, there’s something to it. Cognitive scientists at MIT seem to have found the answer to this “impenetrable” writing style.

Study. Published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers at the renowned center found that even non-lawyers use this kind of complex language when asked to write laws, a behavior that mirrors the use of special rhymes and archaic terms in “magic,” as they call it, to signal its power, according to the work.

This may seem absurd, and it probably is, but as Edward Gibson, professor of brain and cognitive sciences at MIT and lead author of the study, explains: “People seem to understand that there’s an implicit rule that the laws have to be this way,” and they write them that way.

Previous work. The researchers’ study focused on what makes legal writing so difficult to process. At the beginning of the experiment, they assumed that the quirks in legal writing could be explained by repetition: You type something, realize a term isn’t defined, and then “throw” the definition in the middle of the sentence, ad infinitum.

In addition, the researchers built on previous work by Gibson’s team that identified a key feature of legal documents: the frequent use of long definitions inserted in the middle of sentences, known as “centering.” This structure, which is unusual in everyday language, significantly increases the difficulty of understanding.

Testing the hypothesis. To test whether they were right about the origins of legalese, the team recruited two hundred “non-lawyers” via a crowdsourcing platform, all of whom were asked to write laws prohibiting various crimes and create stories about those crimes.

The results were apparently surprising. When writing laws, participants systematically used the centrally added items, regardless of whether they wrote the law in one go or in several stages. However, when writing stories about the same topics, they used much simpler language.

Experiment. They then moved on to another test, in this case a sort of secondary experiment in which participants were asked to write down laws and explanations of those laws for foreign visitors. What happened? Despite preferring simpler language in their explanations, they once again used more complex structures in the laws.

There was no doubt about it for the team. Their findings challenge the idea that legal documents become more complex through a gradual process of editing and adding. Rather, their results support what the researchers call the “magic spell hypothesis,” the idea that legal language deliberately adopts a distinctive style to differentiate itself and convey authority.

Why is it important? As the study notes, we are talking about texts that limit what we can and cannot do. This research could have important implications for efforts to make laws and legal documents more accessible (and readable) to the public. By identifying specific linguistic features that contribute to the complexity of legal language, the study provides a basis for developing more understandable texts without compromising their authority or effectiveness.

Not only that, it also raises questions about the cultural and historical roots of legal language. In fact, after this study, they plan to analyze old American and English laws, as well as other ancient legal codes, to trace the evolution of these linguistic patterns.

Solution. The study reflects that lawyers and lay people deliberately write laws in a complex way, whether or not they have the option to draft, rewrite, and make their language more concise. Interestingly, they do so to literally impress the reader and signal their “power” and authority by writing about them.

In any case, these results could be the start of something good for society. “We’ve learned very recently what makes legal language so complicated, and so I’m optimistic about the ability to change it,” Gibson says.

Image | PXBurada, Blog Entrepreneur

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