Edward Gibson

We might, you know, we're going to talk about legalese at some point. And so maybe we'll talk about that kind of thinking later. with applied to legalese.

That's right.

That's right.

That's right.

Oh, well, legalese is what you think it is. It's just any legal language.

Oh, well, legalese is what you think it is. It's just any legal language.

Oh, well, legalese is what you think it is. It's just any legal language.

So I'm just talking about language in laws and language in contracts. So the stuff that you have to run into, we have to run into every other day or every day, and you skip over because it reads poorly. Or partly it's just long, right? There's a lot of text there that we don't really want to know about.

So I'm just talking about language in laws and language in contracts. So the stuff that you have to run into, we have to run into every other day or every day, and you skip over because it reads poorly. Or partly it's just long, right? There's a lot of text there that we don't really want to know about.

So I'm just talking about language in laws and language in contracts. So the stuff that you have to run into, we have to run into every other day or every day, and you skip over because it reads poorly. Or partly it's just long, right? There's a lot of text there that we don't really want to know about.

But the thing I'm interested in – so I've been working with this guy called Eric Martinez, who is a – he was a lawyer – who was taking my class. I was teaching a psycholinguistics lab class, and I have been teaching it for a long time at MIT, and he was a law student at Harvard.

But the thing I'm interested in – so I've been working with this guy called Eric Martinez, who is a – he was a lawyer – who was taking my class. I was teaching a psycholinguistics lab class, and I have been teaching it for a long time at MIT, and he was a law student at Harvard.

But the thing I'm interested in – so I've been working with this guy called Eric Martinez, who is a – he was a lawyer – who was taking my class. I was teaching a psycholinguistics lab class, and I have been teaching it for a long time at MIT, and he was a law student at Harvard.

And he took the class because he had done some linguistics as an undergrad, and he was interested in the problem of why legalese Sounds hard to understand. So why is it hard to understand and why do they write that way if it is hard to understand? It seems apparent that it's hard to understand. The question is, why is it? And so we didn't know. And we did an evaluation of a bunch of contracts.

And he took the class because he had done some linguistics as an undergrad, and he was interested in the problem of why legalese Sounds hard to understand. So why is it hard to understand and why do they write that way if it is hard to understand? It seems apparent that it's hard to understand. The question is, why is it? And so we didn't know. And we did an evaluation of a bunch of contracts.

And he took the class because he had done some linguistics as an undergrad, and he was interested in the problem of why legalese Sounds hard to understand. So why is it hard to understand and why do they write that way if it is hard to understand? It seems apparent that it's hard to understand. The question is, why is it? And so we didn't know. And we did an evaluation of a bunch of contracts.

Actually, we just took a bunch of random contracts. Because I don't know, you know, there's contracts and laws might not be exactly the same, but contracts are kind of the things that most people have to deal with most of the time. And so that's kind of the most common thing that humans have, like, that adults in our industrialized society have to deal with a lot. And so that's what we pulled.

Actually, we just took a bunch of random contracts. Because I don't know, you know, there's contracts and laws might not be exactly the same, but contracts are kind of the things that most people have to deal with most of the time. And so that's kind of the most common thing that humans have, like, that adults in our industrialized society have to deal with a lot. And so that's what we pulled.

Actually, we just took a bunch of random contracts. Because I don't know, you know, there's contracts and laws might not be exactly the same, but contracts are kind of the things that most people have to deal with most of the time. And so that's kind of the most common thing that humans have, like, that adults in our industrialized society have to deal with a lot. And so that's what we pulled.

And we didn't know what was hard about them, but it turns out that the way they're written is very center-embedded, has nested structures in them. So it has low-frequency words as well. That's not surprising. Lots of texts have low-frequency. It does have surprising, slightly lower-frequency words than other kinds of control texts, even sort of academic texts. Legalese is even worse.