Orazbayeva A. S.

Candidate of Philological Sciences, Senior Lecturer of Theory of Languages and Literature Department at Kostanay State University

THE ROLE OF THE STATE LANGUAGE IN JURISPRUDENCE

         The linguistic support of legal bodies is currently an important problem. In order to understand and master a document, it is necessary to have good knowledge of the language in which it was written. It is known that laws, judgments and statutes of the Republic of Kazakhstan are translated from an official language that is original into the state language. If the law is the mirror of our statehood, and the state language is Kazakh, then the laws must be correctly designed in our native language. “Works on the systematization of the laws, research in different directions are often held during legislation systematization and analysis of the use of the rights, revealing  contradictions of legal norms and in these works the superiority of Russian language can be noticed. The reason is the small number of staff, knowing the state language in perfection, who would analyze the laws. Mistakes concerning the Kazakh language occur for the reason that the laws are originally published in Russian and only then translated into Kazakh” (1). Due to the lack of competent Kazakh language experts, trials, accusations, interrogations, defence, documentation and other processes are carried in an official language. Numerous grammatical and stylistic mistakes occur in the documents designed in the official language. All of the above points to the inadequacy of linguistic support of legal authorities. To solve this problem we need to instill linguistic skills to future employees of law-enforcement bodies, i.e., to provide all the legal industry with experts, who mastered the legal knowledge along with grammar and stylistics of the state language.

         The main goal of modern universities is the preparation of educated, cultured, highly erudite and creative specialists. Both curricula and content of the curriculum are aimed to this. Mastering of linguistics along with specializing disciplines is an important task for students of legal professions. Learning lexicology, grammar and stylistics, which are branches of linguistics, is particularly important for future lawyers. In any legal industry oral and written form of the language is the main professional instrument.  

         Lectures on legal topics, judgments of legal proceedings, announcing of judgments and verdicts require competent speech of public prosecutors and defenders. Therefore, any lawyer along with the competent knowledge of their specialty, must be familiar with grammar and stylistics of the modern Kazakh language.

         A language develops with the society. Developing, updating and changing of linguistics along with society is also natural. And the vocabulary of the language is updated. The fact the language is updated due to temporary and public updates is mentioned in a number of works: “A language is a living phenomenon, and with time new words and concepts are developed” (2). The knowledge given to the students in linguistics should be consistent with its development and updating.

         The formation of the skills of excellent use of lexicology, grammar and stylistics of the Kazakh language in the professional activity of future lawyers should be implemented within university. It is needed for competent, excellent use of linguistic knowledge in professional activity of legal industry. Despite the fact that the Kazakh language began to develop after gaining of the independence by the Republic of Kazakhstan, it has not yet become the language of the law. Certainly, the Kazakh language as the state language had a broad scope of use. However, it is impossible not to notice the superiority of the official language. In article 30 of the code of criminal procedure of the Republic of Kazakhstan, it says: “In the Republic of Kazakhstan a criminal legal case is conducted in the state language, if necessary an official and other languages are used along with the state language, but despite this, the official language is commonly used one.”

         In the language of law, Russian and other languages are used along with other languages. Making Kazakh language dominant, the necessity in daily professional activity is, firstly, the duty of our lawyers. If lawyers have mastered the lexicology, grammar and stylistics of Kazakh language in the university, and we able to use in their future activity, it would the indication of the high level of their professional skill.

         The language of criminal acts, as the language of law, requires precision and rejects indirect explanations. The speech of employees of law-enforcement bodies, i.e, judges, lawyers, investigators and the patterns of their oral speech and written documents require precision and clarity. “In order to avoid the misunderstandings and disputes during the execution of the decision, the part, considered by the judge, should be stated clearly and precisely” (4). On this account, the language of some Kazakh-speaking specialists and documents does not tolerate criticism. It is known that the knowledge of Kazakh language at a certain level of employees of law-enforcement bodies does not meet our needs.

         In universities, according to the standards of general education in the Republic of Kazakhstan as a component of cycle selection of general educational subjects, the following subjects are taught: “Business Kazakh language”, “Record keeping in the state language”. Curricula and educational programs of these disciplines, their goals and objectives are included in the turnover of the educational process. But the teaching these disciplines does not meet our abovementioned requirements. 

         As earlier mentioned, the teaching of lexicology, grammar and stylistics of Kazakh language to our future lawyers is an important point. For the literate paperwork, trials, accusations, interrogations, defence, etc. in the state language the future lawyers should have a corresponding special linguistic training. The essence of linguistic support of future lawyers is in the teaching the feature of Kazakh language in a special legal meaning. For publication of laws and their application, i.e., trials, accusations, interrogations, defence, the formalization of legal documents and other works of law-enforcement branches in the state language will be conducted correctly, if a lawyer will have knowledge of lexicology, grammar and stylistics of Kazakh language along with professional knowledge.

 

References:

1 Galyashina, Y.I. Capabilities of judicial linguistic examinations on the protection of intellectual property rights // Intellectual property. Copyright and neighboring rights. 2005.

2 Brinev, K. I. On presumptions of linguistic examination: conflicting statements on the scale of the reduction / opinion  // Forensic linguistics –7: language as a phenomenon of legal communication. – Barnaul, 2006.

3 Belchikov, Y. A. Invective vocabulary in the context of some of the trends in modern Russian language communication  // Philological Sciences. 2002.