Language for Legislation and Legislation through Language

Tímea Drinóczi, Giulia A. Pennisi and Helen Xanthaki, Editors

Q1. Tell us a little bit about the book.

Language for Legislation and Legislation through Language (Routledge) is the first scholarly collection to explore the interdisciplinary crossroads of law and linguistics in the context of legislative drafting. The book brings together lawyers, linguists, and terminology experts who work on the design and standardization of legal and technical terms to show how linguistic tools and methodologies can improve the clarity, transparency, and effectiveness of legislation. Drawing on case studies from Europe, Latin America, the Caucasus, and Western Asia, the chapters examine the social, cultural, and institutional contexts of legislative language, translation, and interpretation. The volume also showcases technological and terminological tools – such as multilingual databases and natural language processing – that can support clearer drafting. By promoting clarity, legal certainty, and accessibility, the book directly contributes to strengthening the rule of law and fostering constitutionalism through greater compliance with, and trust in, legislation. Ultimately, the book charts a path for more precise and accessible legislative texts, thus widening the law’s social reach and deepening democracy.

Q2. What inspired you to take up this project?

This book emerged from a shared recognition that, despite decades of scholarship, we continue to struggle to produce legislation that is not only technically sound but also socially effective and accessible. Legislative drafting has too often been treated as the preserve of a small group of specialists, a dynamic which has limited innovation and kept linguists and other disciplines at the margins.

As editors, we came to this challenge from different but complementary perspectives. Helen Xanthaki has dedicated her career to improving the theory and practice of legislative drafting; Giulia Pennisi contributes deep expertise in linguistics, translation, and discourse analysis; and my research area is comparative constitutional law and legislative studies. Helen and Giulia initiated this project and generously invited me to join them – an invitation I was proud to accept – so that together we could build a truly collaborative and interdisciplinary volume.

Our shared aim was to break down old silos, bringing lawyers, linguists, terminologists, and researchers working with data and language technology into dialogue. Together, we wanted to chart a new agenda: the use of teachings from the discipline of linguistics so that legislation can better serve its core democratic purpose: communicating clearly, guiding behavior, and earning public trust.

Q3. Whose work was influential on you throughout the project?

We drew inspiration from several streams of scholarship. On the linguistic side, we were guided by scholars such as V.K. Bhatia, S. Šarčević, P. Tiersma, and R. Wodak, whose work in discourse analysis and lexico-grammatical studies has shown how language shapes legal meaning and how drafting practices can be improved. On the legal side, Helen’s work on legislative quality and I. Bar-Siman-Tov’s call to bridge disciplinary and geographical divides were central. Their vision of a global, comparative legisprudence inspired us to place legislative drafting at the intersection of law and language. We also built on the work of M. Mousmouti and others who advocate effectiveness-oriented approaches to legislation.

Together, these influences shaped the book as an interdisciplinary conversation that extends beyond describing legislative language to demonstrate how it can be improved to enhance legal certainty, compliance, and democratic legitimacy.

Q4. What challenges did you face in writing the book?

One of our main challenges was conceptual: this is the first book to bring together legal scholars, linguists, terminologists, and researchers using data and language technology around the shared question of how legislative language can be improved. We had to identify the key themes, tools, and interconnections that could structure such a conversation and make it meaningful across disciplines and jurisdictions.

Another challenge was coordinating a diverse group of contributors representing different legal systems, languages, and methodological traditions. Our goal was to create coherence across the chapters while still allowing each author’s voice and case study to come through. We believe the final structure, with its thematic and comparative framing, successfully achieves this.

Ultimately, we confronted the challenge that the book itself addresses: presenting complex ideas about law, language, and technology in a clear, transparent, and precise manner. We aimed to convey these values through the volume and invite readers to explore a new interdisciplinary agenda. It was demanding work, but the diversity of perspectives is precisely what gives the book its richness and, we hope, its lasting value.

Q5. What do you hope to see as the book’s contribution to academic discourse and constitutional or public law more broadly?

We hope that the book will offer a new research agenda and a methodology for pursuing it. It provides a structured overview of the key topics in this emerging field – not an exclusive list, but a starting point. It seeks to offer a forum for researchers already working in this area and a meeting point for those approaching it from their own disciplinary perspectives. Above all, it extends an invitation for others to join, build on what is here, and take the conversation further.

In doing so, we hope this book helps establish legislative drafting as a central subject of legal scholarship rather than a purely technical domain. By demonstrating how linguistic analysis, discourse studies, and technology can inform the drafting, translating, and interpreting of legislation, the book encourages constitutional and public law scholars to view legislative expression as a site of democratic practice. Its case studies demonstrate that clear, precise, and inclusive legislative language is crucial for achieving legal certainty, accessibility, and legitimacy, which are fundamental to the rule of law. We also hope it inspires legislators, translators, and lawyer-linguists to adopt tested linguistic methodologies and collaborate across disciplines, ultimately producing laws that are not only formally valid but also socially effective.

Q6. What’s next?

First, a short pause to recover from the effort of editing such a large and rich volume! After that, we are looking forward to hearing how the book is received both by reviewers and by colleagues working at the intersection of law, language, and legislative drafting. Their feedback will help us decide whether and how to continue this conversation, perhaps through follow-up workshops, collaborative projects, or even a second volume. We hope that the book will be taken up as a helpful concept and research agenda, enabling us to establish a broader network of scholars and practitioners and take the following steps in developing this field.

Suggested citation: Tímea Drinóczi, Giulia A. Pennisi and Helen Xanthaki (eds), Language for Legislation and Legislation through Language IACL-AIDC Blog (7 October 2025) Language for Legislation and Legislation through Language — IACL-IADC Blog

For more information and to purchase the book, click here.