Linguistic and legal aspects of the text of the Federal Law "On the state language of the Russian Federation"


Civil regulation of the use of the Russian language

I. A. Drozdov

The article concentrates on the use of the Russian language in various civil relations (including transactions, marriage registration, choosing a name for a newborn, changing name or surname, fixing the brand name of a legal entity), the principles of state regulation of copyright and right of patent, rendering services and other cases of civil transactions, based on the provisions of the Federal Law "On the state language of the Russian Federation."

Criminal regulation of relations objectified in speech forms

V. S. Prokhorov, N. S. Shatikhina

Not only social relations or material things can become an object of crime, but also verbalized information, that is, some speech phenomena. Speech objectification can happen in the so-called verbal form. The article lists and briefly comments on the articles of the Criminal Code concerning such crimes. The authors consider such speech acts as insult (in various formulations) and slander in detail. Being the most striking examples of verbal crimes, they still have certain complexities in legal interpretation.

International Experience in Regulating the Legal Status of a State Language

S. A. Belov

The article is about the legal regulation of issues related to the status of the state language and the languages of national minorities. The processes of recognition of the dominant and regional languages official status, defining areas of mandatory use of state and official languages, taking legal measures to protect the state languages of Eastern and Western Europe and a number of Oriental countries, are associated with certain difficulties, characteristic for each state based on its ethnic composition.

Legislative regulation of the state language status in the Russian Federation

S. A. Belov

The article concentrates on the problem of limits of compulsory use of the state language as the working language of state bodies, publication of legal acts, legislative activities, public administration and court proceedings. It comments on the ban to use foreign words and expressions while using Russian as official language, addresses the issues of lexical standardization of the Russian language, as well as other state languages of the Russian federal subjects. The author emphasizes the need to clearly formulate the principles that define the aims of the legal regulation of the state language status and the spheres of its obligatory use.

The state language of the Russian Federation: the language norm and values of the Russian speech

V. V. Khimik

The article covers the codification of the Russian language particularly the problem of establishing the language standard. It is this standard pronunciation that guides experts in establishing linguistic norms. According to the author, it is advisable to use a narrow and strict understanding of codified norm which is stable, widespread, binding and consistent. Language accuracy, thematic and communicative appropriateness, exact expression, logical speech and text structure, functional and stylistic clearness and expressiveness are the main criteria of good Russian language, formed on the basis of codified norms of the literary language.

The language principle of court proceedings and record keeping in law enforcement agencies

M. Z. Shvarts

The article discusses the issues related to the implementation of the speech right of participants in civil, criminal, administrative or constitutional proceedings, that is, the provision of opportunity to communicate with the court and other trial participants using the native language. Details are given on the content and implementation of the language principle of legal proceedings. The article also covers the role of interpreter during trial, as well as a situation when courts of different instances hear cases in different languages. The examples from legal practice illustrate the peculiarities of Russian legislation regarding the language of court proceedings.

The language of rulemaking and legal technique issues

A. V. Polyakov

The language of legislation and legal documents is quite specialized. The article considers the issues of legal communication, which is implemented through an exact selection of linguistic means needed to create texts in the field of rulemaking and law. The article states the specific features of legal language in the system of the Russian language and the basic characteristics of legal texts; it also gives general scientific advice for writing legal acts and ways of interpreting them.

The language norm and the rules of speech activity

S. A. Kuznetsov

State regulation of speech activity inevitably covers various aspects of speech practice including the selection of language (or languages) used in teaching in schools and universities, paperwork and court proceedings, publication of research results. The state also regulates the development of verbal communication rules in terms of linguistic equality, when legislative and executive authorities use several languages, as well as speech activity, standardization of language and rulemaking within one language. The author formulates basic provisions for a common language norm standard, introduces key linguistic concepts and describes the language style of state documents. Examples from judicial practice are used to consider special cases of using substandard vocabulary and language examination reports in cases on protection of honor, dignity and business reputation.