Fundéu Guzmán Ariza gave a writing course to the staff of the Legal Consultancy of the Executive Branch with the topic “The most frequent errors of the Dominican legal language”, dictated by its president, Fabio J. Guzmán Ariza, and its coordinator, Ruth J. Ruiz.
During three days, from June 26 to 28, Fabio J. Guzmán Ariza explained to the participants the close relationship that exists between the law and the language in which its rules are expressed, as well as the characteristics of the ideal legal language. He illustrated, with examples taken from the Dominican Constitution and recent regulations and decrees of the Executive Power, the main spelling, lexical and grammatical failures of the legislative and administrative language of the Dominican Republic. Likewise, Ruth Ruiz presented a review of the linguistic codes and legal Spanish tools available for online consultation, as well as the services that offer answers to specific doubts about the use of Spanish.
Legal Consultancy
Guzmán Ariza said that a first step towards writing coherent and correct understandable legal texts is to learn to use the linguistic codes in the same way that legal codes are used (civil, commercial, criminal, civil procedure, criminal procedure, etc.), as well as the rest of the current legislation. A second step would be the development of a style manual for public administration.
These activities are part of the work of Fundéu Guzmán Ariza, an initiative of the Guzmán Ariza Foundation of the Dominican Academy of Language, whose objectives include promoting the good use of Spanish in the Dominican Republic. It has the advice of the Dominican Academy of Language and the Foundation of Urgent Spanish (Fundéu BBVA), as well as the economic sponsorship of the Guzmán Ariza law firm.
[June 2018]