Synonyms in the texts of laws (based on Russian laws)

The paper considers the issues of the use of synonyms in the texts of Russian laws. The research materials are the texts of federal and regional laws, expert practice. It is noted that synonymy, despite the requirement for the unification of legal terminology, is also characteristic of legislative texts. At the same time, synonyms are used not to exclude repetitions of the same words but for the sake of completeness, accuracy, clarity of the transfer of legal meaning. Legal synonyms are an integral genre and stylistic feature of the legislative text. Synonyms perform informative, pragmatic, text-forming, and other functions. There are some trends in the use of synonyms in the laws. Preference is given to one or another word from the synonymous series. The choice depends on the subject of the law, aspects of legal regulation, with the chosen synonym not always being stylistically neutral, devoid of evaluative semantics. Some terms are used not as synonyms but exclusively in terms of generic relationship. Paronyms may be used as synonyms. Frequent joint (contact) use of synonyms occurs when an additional (qualifying) term is given in brackets after the main term. Such synonyms are characterized by semantic and stylistic differences, the ratio of meanings, and integrated content. A special clause on the equivalence of terms may be made in the law. However, the context always reveals the semantic difference of “equivalent” terms, their semantic shades. The methods and principles of analysis are traditional for Russian studies and legal linguistics: discursive, genre-stylistic, lexical-semantic, comparative, statistical, etc.

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