Writing authority: the diverging rules of law and language

 

Contrasting the rules of language which govern legal certainty and post-structuralism

As any law student will know, understanding language in all its precise and pedantic forms is an essential skill for their career path. When one has to advise a client, it is important to understand the probabilities of how legal procedures play out and what is the best course of action to take. Thus the interpretation of language is key to convicting someone or getting multi-million dollar damages.

I am no linguist (in the scientific sense of the word) but it strikes me as peculiar how the law student will try and ascertain the legal certainty of language, while others in the humanities are busy breaking it down to find new meanings in texts. Although it is difficult to believe fully in the 'death of the author', it is evident that text is removed from its author to a certain extent. Especially when it comes to the advertising billboards that we see every day, this is their purpose - to remove themselves from the author and delve piercingly into the observer's mind.

Furthermore, the study of literature is enriched by multiple, overlapping meanings. There are no restrictive rules like in the study of law where one learns the three key rules of language (literal/golden/mischief rule); there is no real purpose to a strict understanding of the text in literature, whether it be in a personal or commercial setting. It is enriching - not distracting - to have many interpretations of the same words. The reader of the novel is worried about the relationship between him and the words in front of him; one wants to get swept away in an entrancing discourse far removed from the hard-nosed considerations of certainty and risk-management.

But the key difference between the development of legal and literary language is this. While authority in a legal document is ascertained by its link to the force of the law and the State, authority in literature is at its strongest when the author is unaware of it. Writers have no natural wisdom but their words have most authority when they themselves are not conscious of the power of their writing.