摘要
为了体现法律的权威性,实现立法目的,准确性历来是法律语言的灵魂与生命。但事实上由于种种因素的影响,在法律条文以及司法实践中,法律语言运用模糊词语的现象俯拾皆是。因为立法者不可能预测到法律活动中所有会发生的事情,只能运用模糊词语来增强法律语言的自由度从而扩大法律规范的适用范围。因此,在一定程度上说,法律语言中模糊性的存在是不可避免的。法律语言的模糊性维护了法律的稳定,不仅为辨证推理的使用、创立新的法律原则提供了契机,而且为法律解释提供了可能,从而使概括的、抽象的规则适用于具体的行为,同时还有利于准确表达立法原则的概括性,扩大法律规范的适用范围,增强法律语言的自由度,实现立法的科学性。
如上所述,模糊词语的运用增强了法律语言的自由度,这就为司法结果的最终确定提供了多种选择。但司法结果是不容含糊的确定性结论,必须从多个选择中确定一个作为案件处理的结果。这样一来,如何从模糊性过渡到确定性,或者说如何消除法律语言的模糊性从而体现法律公正就成为法律语言研究者值得关注的问题。因此,探讨法律语言模糊性及其消除很有实践意义。
语言的模糊性研究源自模糊理论的提出。模糊理论是美国加利福尼亚大学的控制论教授L.A.Zadeh在1965年首先提出来的。他在Information and Control上发表的题为Fuzzy Sets的文章指出:现实物质世界中的客体通常没有精确的界限。从此,“模糊”理论和概念被应用到很多科学领域包括语言学领域。同时随着语言学领域对模糊语言研究的不断深入,“模糊”理论和概念逐渐被国内外广大法律语言工作者引入到法律语言学领域里来。本文正是以模糊理论为基础,对法律语言中的模糊现象进行系统的分析。
本文首先简要介绍了国内外学术界对法律语言模糊性的研究现状;然后从法律规范概括性的特点、法律的时滞性和不断变化的社会需求之间的矛盾以及交际的局限性和文化的差异性之间的矛盾这四方面着重分析了法律语言中模糊性的成因,指出模糊性不可避免地存在于法律语言中;最后从立法者和法庭活动中执法者这两个方面详细阐述了法律语言的模糊性在立法和司法阶段的消除过程,从而使法庭判决表现为确定性,实现了司法公正,维护了法律权威;但由于受各种因素的影响,模糊的消除并不是绝对的。
As we all know preciseness is the soul of legal language and one of legislative principles pursued by the law-maker. Without rigorousness and exactness, law will be lack of compulsory power and authority. As a matter of fact, vagueness is omnipresent in legal language. In the process of lawmaking, though the legislators try their best to keep the exactness and precision of law, vagueness is unavoidable. In order to broaden the application scope of legal regulations, the legislators increase the flexibility of legal language because they cannot anticipate all of the possible happenings in legal activities. Therefore, vagueness of legal language is necessary and unavoidable. It not only provides the chance of reasoning validly and establishing new legal principle, but also enlarges the application of statutes and regulations and increase the flexibility of legal language so as to make the legislation more feasible.
The judicial results, however, must be certain and definite. Therefore, how to transit from vagueness into exactness becomes an issue which the law researchers should pay attention to.
The research on vague language originates from Fuzzy Set Theory, proposed by L. A. Zadeh, an American professor of the University of California. In the paper Fuzzy Sets (1965) published in Information and Control, he pointed out that there are subjects in the real world that usually do not have very exactly definite boundaries. From then on, vagueness has been applied in various scientific fields including linguistics. At the same time, as the study of fuzzy linguistics developed quickly and extensively in the field of linguistics, the fuzzy set theory is also introduced to the field of forensic linguistics by the legal linguists and the law carriers at home and abroad. This paper, based on“Fuzzy Set Theory”, mainly focuses on analyzing the vagueness in legal language in a systematic way.
The dissertation introduces briefly the status quo of the research on legal language and concentrates on analyzing the reasons for the existence of vagueness in legal language from the following points: generality of legislative language; inconsistency between the“time lag”of law and the requirements of a changing society; and communicative limitations and cultural differences respectively. And then the dissertation explores how to transfer the vagueness into definiteness of judicial decisions in the legislative and judicial process from the perspectives of legislators and law carriers in the courtroom so as to achieve the justness of judicature and to safeguard the authority of law. But affected by many factors, the removal of vagueness of legal language cannot be achieved completely.
引文
Atria, Fernando & MacCormick, D. Neil. Law and Legal Interpretation [M]. Burlington, Vermont: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2003.
Berk-Seligson, Susan. The Bilingual Courtroom: Court Interpreters in the Judicial Press [M]. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1990.
Channell, Joanna. Vague Language [M]. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003.
Christie, George C.. Vagueness and Legal Language [A]. Minnsota Law Review, 1964(48): 885-911. (http://eprints.law.duke.edu/archive/00000247, accessed on July 6, 2007)
Clapp, James E.. Dictionary of the Law [C]. New York: Random House Webster, 2000.
Crystal, David. & Davy, Derek. Investigating English Style [M]. Harlow: Longmans, 1969. Dworkin, Ronald. Law as Interpretation [M]. Texas Law Review, 1982.
Endicott, Timothy A.O.. Vagueness in Law [M]. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.
Frege, Gottlob. Collected Papers on Mathematics, Logic, and Philosophy [M]. Oxford, UK; New York, NY, USA: B. Blackwell, 1984.
Gibbons, John. Language and the Law [M]. London and New York: Longman, 1994.
Karpova, Olga & Kartashkova, Faina. Essays on Lexicon, Lexicography, Terminography in Russian, American and Other Cultures [M]. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2007. (http://www.c-s-p.org/Flyers/9781847181039-sample.pdf, November 12, 2007)
Levi, Judith and Anne Walker (eds.). Language in the Judicial Process[M]. New York: Plenum Press, 1990.
Lyons, David. Moral Aspects of Legal Theory: Essays on Law, Justice, and Political Responsibility[M]. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993.
Maley, Yon. The language of the law [M]. In John Gibbons ed. Language and the Law, 1994. O’Barr, William M. Linguistic Evidence: Language, Power, and Strategy in the Courtroom [M]. New York: Academic Press, 1982.
Phillips, Alfred. Lawyers’Language: How and Why Legal Language is Different [M]. London: New York: Routledge, 2003.
Russell, Bertrand. Vagueness [J]. Australasian Journal of Philosophy and Psychology, London: Allen & Unwin, 1923: 84-92. (http://www.ling.ed.ac.uk/linguist/issues/15/15-3335.html, accessed on August 12, 2007)
Shapiro, Stewart. Vagueness in Context [M]. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006.
Tiersma, Peter Meijes. Legal Language [M]. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999. Williamson, Timothy. Vagueness [M]. London: Routledge, 1996.
Wright, Crispin. Language Mastery and the Sorities Paradox [M]. London: Oxford University Press, 1976.
Zadeh. L. A. Fuzzy Sets[J]. Information and Control, 1965(8): 338-353.
陈云良.法的模糊性之探析[J].法学评论, 2002(1): 19-25.
陈忠诚.法律英语五十篇[C].北京:中国对外翻译出版公司, 1987.
董晓波.略论英语立法语言的模糊与消除[J].外语与外语教学, 2004(2): 60-63.
杜金榜.从法律语言的模糊性到司法结果的确定性[J].现代外语, 2001(3): 306-311.
杜金榜.法律语言学[M].上海:上海外语教育出版社, 2004.
胡军等.法律语言的语义模糊和语用模糊分析[J].重庆工学院学报, 2003(3): 92-94.
贾蕴菁.法律语言精确性与模糊性相应相异析[J].北京市政法管理干部学院学报, 2002(3): 45-48.
姜剑云.法律语言与言语研究[M].河北:群众出版社, 1995.
李龙,汪进元.良法标准初探[J].浙江大学学报(人文社会科学版), 2001(3): 5-11.
廖美珍.论法学的语言转向[J].吉林:社会科学战线, 2006(2): 200-204.
刘红婴.法律语言学[M].北京:北京大学出版社, 2003.
刘蔚铭.法律语言学研究[M].北京:中国经济出版社,2003.
刘蔚铭.法律语言的模糊性:性质与成因分析[J].西安外国语学院学报, 2003(6): 31-34.
吕公理.语言模糊性的认识论和方法论思考[J].外语学刊, 1995(3): 13-17.
潘庆云.跨世纪的中国法律语言[M].上海:华东理工大学出版社, 1997.
庞建荣.法律语言中的语用模糊[J].外国语言文学, 2003(4): 21-23.
彭京宜.法律语言的文化解析[M].上海:知识出版社, 2001.
秦秀白.论语言的模糊性和模糊的言语风格[J].外国语, 1984(6): 43-47.
沈敏荣.法律的限制[M].武汉:武汉大学出版社, 2000.
舒国莹.战后德国法哲学的发展路向[J].比较法研究, 1994(4): 337-355.
苏力.超越法律[M].中国:中国政法大学出版社, 2001.
孙懿华,周广然.法律语言学[M].北京:中国政法大学出版社, 1997.
王逢鑫.英语模糊语法[M].北京:外文出版社, 2001.
王建.法律语言的模糊性及准确运用[J].西南政法大学学报, 2006(2): 125-131.
王洁.法律语言学教程.北京:法律出版社, 1998.
王青梅.法律英语的模糊性特征[J].宁波大学学报(人文科学版), 2005(6): 87-90.
伍铁平.模糊语言学[M].上海:上海外语教育出版社, 1999.
吴伟平.语言与法律—司法领域的语言学研究[M].上海:上海外语教育出版社, 2002.
杨德祥.法律语言模糊性对法律制度的影响[J].云南大学学报(法学版), 2006(4): 69-72.
杨淑芳.略论法律语言中确切词语和模糊词语的使用[J].政法论丛, 1996(6): 44-47.
张乔.模糊语言学论集[C].大连:大连出版社, 1997.
张乔.模糊语义学[M].北京:中国社会科学出版社, 1998.
张新红.汉语立法语篇的言语行为分析[J].现代外语, 2000(3): 284-296.
张文显.法理学[M].北京:高等教育出版社/北京大学出版社, 2001.
赵梦菲.法律语言的模糊性[D].上海:对外经济贸易大学, 2002.
钟颖.模糊语与模糊修辞[M].福州:福建人民出版社, 1983.