语言与文风2022sciencedirect.com编辑精选
法律语言难懂源于写作不佳，而非专业概念
Poor writing, not specialized concepts, drives difficulty with legal language
导读
这是一项认知科学研究：法律文本难懂，主要不是因为充斥专业术语，而是因为写作者把句子写得又长又绕、修饰语层层嵌套、回指距离过远。帖子下的讨论用德州宪法修正案 ballot 提案、合同起草经验等实例印证了这一点，对任何写说明性文字的人都有直接借鉴价值——难读往往是写作问题，不是知识门槛问题。
可以直接用的写作要点
- 01
把长句拆成短小、单一主题的段落：既好读，也方便修改、谈判和复用。
- 02
先举例再讲规则：读者从几个具体例子中归纳规则，比直接读抽象定义容易得多。
- 03
别用"读者是专业人士"当借口：面向公众的条款、投票提案、协议都应该让外行读得懂。
- 04
写完后检查歧义：像"对总额度限制的数额的削减"这类多重修饰，允许两种读法就是失败的句子。
- 05
精确不等于堆砌限定语：为了滴水不漏而层层嵌套，反而让真正的意思失焦。
HN 评论精选
面向全体选民的文本都写成这样，说明问题不在读者专业性，而在写作本身。
有人说"外行本来就不是目标读者"，但这是一份真实的德州宪法修正案投票提案，全州选民都要对它投票：内容是授权立法机构减少对老人或残障人士自住房产征收的小学与中学教育用途从价税的限额总额，以反映上一年度维护与运营税最高压缩率的法定下调。我有常春藤学历，仍然几乎读不懂，而且至今认为其中"对总额度限制的数额的削减"可以有两种解释。
hn_throwaway_99查看英文原文
For everyone commenting "laypeople aren't the intended audience", this monstrosity was a recent Texas constitutional ballot proposal, i.e. all voters in the state were asked to vote on it: > The constitutional amendment authorizing the legislature to provide for the reduction of the amount of a limitation on the total amount of ad valorem taxes that may be imposed for general elementary and secondary public school purposes on the residence homestead of a person who is elderly or disabled to reflect any statutory reduction from the preceding tax year in the maximum compressed rate of the maintenance and operations taxes imposed for those purposes on the homestead. I have an Ivy League education and I still could hardly understand it, and I still think some of the language is ambiguous (i.e. I think "the reduction of the amount of a limitation on the total amount" can be interpreted both ways). https://www.dallasnews.com/news/watchdog/2022/03/25/the-language-in-a-may-vote-to-lower-texas-property-taxes-is-so-confusing-that-its-incomprehensible/
简明英语是可以推动的行业规范，美国法律语言尤其需要改革。
我在多个英语国家做过 CTO，也在这些地方签过合同，还和一位英语国家的律师结了婚，因此对这个行业的怪癖见得多。我基本同意文章观点，但要强调美国在古旧语言上最严重：其他英语国家大多经历过合同与立法的"简明英语"运动，美国则更固执地坚持"这套措辞已被判例验证过"。有人说很多合同的目标读者不是外行，我强烈反对——尤其是那些由合同法务写给法务或法官看的条款，恰恰最该写到普通人能看懂。法律行业可以也应当做得更好。
Quarrel查看英文原文
I've been a CTO at companies in various bits of the Anglosphere, and signed contracts in all of the bits (and some other places). I'm also married to an Anglosphere lawyer (which gives me lots more exposure than I might have guessed to the idiosyncrasies of the profession). In my experience, I very much agree with the headline (and abstract) here, but would emphasise that the US is the worst for archaic language, creating a worse barrier to entry. Most other countries in the Anglosphere have been through a "plain english" language push in both contract & legislation, while the US has stuck to "this language is proven through precedent" more stubbornly than anywhere else. This seems to be particularly prevalent in IP law, although that might be my tech bias showing. I would very much argue against those (even in this thread), that say that the lay-person isn't the intended audience for lots of contracts, particularly for T&Cs where they are often written by a contracts lawyer, for a contracts lawyer or judge, but should ABSOLUTELY be written for the lay-person to understand. Anyway, I think the legal profession can & should do better.
短小、单一主题的段落是改善可读性收益最高的具体手法。
我是律师，也教合同起草。读不懂的合同最大的问题是 L.O.A.D. 太多——Lazy Or Arrogant Drafters（懒惰或傲慢的起草者）。要简化合同语言，性价比最高的做法是 SSSP：短小、单一主题的段落。这种段落更易读，谈判时更易审查和修改，也更容易在其他合同中复用——有点像软件里的模块化和正交性。
dctoedt查看英文原文
Lawyer and contract-drafting teacher here. The biggest problem with unreadable contracts is that we have too many L.O.A.D.s: Lazy Or Arrogant Drafters. (You can decide for yourself: L.O.A.D. of what?) There's a relevant Dilbert cartoon: [0] To simplify contract language, the biggest bang for the buck comes from SSSP: Short, Single-Subject Paragraphs, which are much easier to read; to review and revise during contract negotiations; and to reuse in other contracts. (It's not unlike modularity and orthogonality in software.) For more ranting on that subject — with some pathological before-and-after examples — see my online course materials (this version isn't pretty; I'm almost done refactoring it). [1] [0] https://dilbert.com/strip/2008-08-28 [1] https://toedtclassnotes.site44.com/Notes-on-Contract-Drafting-2021-01-22.html#short-sentences
按概念结构逐块描述会产生大量回指；按思路演进来讲、先给例子才易懂。
这种"写得差"——句子长、回指远、难以理解——和很多学者讲不清东西、以及源代码难读，是同一个原因。我讲东西也常被人吐槽。我的体会是：描述一个复杂的互联概念时，我心里先有一幅图（概念的网络），然后像描述一幅画那样，先细致描述每个可见部分，再描述部分之间的连接。这种"准确"的描述方式自然产生大量远距离回指，读者很难跟上。更好的办法是复现你面对现实约束时如何一步步想出这个模型，用例子说明问题和解法——人从少数例子归纳规则，远比反过来容易。代价是这种写法费力气，且往往不够精确，在合同或代码里未必可接受。
torginus查看英文原文
I think this "poor writing", as in hard to understand writing with long backreferences is due to the same reasons as why many academics are terrible at explaining things, as well as why source code is hard to read. I should know, others usually like pointing out how terrible I am at explaining things. And I think I know why. When I make a naive attempt at describing a complex, interconnected concept, such as a piece of math, or a program that does a thing I start with a mental picture - a graph of interconnected concepts. Then I try to describe the picture - the same way one would describe a painting. I describe each visible part separately, often in great detail, then I try to describe the links and interconnections between parts. This sort of 'accurate' descriptive style naturally leads to huge backreferences, and people usually have a ton of trouble following along. However I think there's a way of getting your point across - one basically needs to reproduce the thought process of how one would come up with the given model given the real world constraints, illustrating the issue and its proposed solution with examples. It is often said that people are much better at deriving the rules from a few examples than the other way around. However this sort of descriptive style takes both a lot of effort, and usually is less precise, which often is not acceptable, such as in the case of contracts or computer code.
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