MIT Study Explains Why Legal Documents Are So Incomprehensible

• MIT cognitive scientists have discovered that the convoluted language of legalese is used to convey a sense of authority, similar to how magic spells use special rhymes and archaic terms.
• In a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers found that even non-lawyers use this complex language when writing laws.
• The study revealed that legal documents often include long definitions within sentences, a structure known as 'center-embedding,' which makes the text harder to understand.
• Despite lawyers preferring plain English versions of documents, the convoluted style persists, possibly due to an implicit rule that laws should sound authoritative.
• The researchers hope their findings will encourage lawmakers to write more comprehensible laws, a goal that has seen little progress since efforts began in the 1970s.

Source: MIT