Abstract
English has become the main language of communication in most subject areas in the globalized world. However, unlike other fields of human activities, law has been still quite resistant to globalizing forces coming from various directions.
As long as different countries exist as autonomous and sovereign entities, their legal systems remain confined to their geographically delimited area, substantially influenced by the history, culture and tradition of the respective area on the one hand, and by the language used there as a means of communication on the other. As a result, the English used in common law would always be the navel of all English varieties used in the legal domain.
Whatever variety of legal English one encounters, it always stems from the "original" legal English, i.e. that of common law. Certain jurilinguistic aspects may be expanded upon, some pushed out, and others added.
When a legal system uses English as its official language, the scope of modification of, or even departure from, classical common-law English would depend on the system's philosophical and conceptual remoteness from common law. Translating legal texts into English requires that a translator should make a qualified decision with respect to a variety of legal English.
The analysis should be aimed at choosing the best possible "variety" of legal English at all "linguistic" levels - grammatical (morphology and syntax), semantic and conceptual (relevant terminological choice), textual (relevant text types/genres) and pragmatic (considering potential addressees). The decision relating to "which legal English" should be used may often be motivated by the type of target legal system (e.g. common law, continental law, sharia, etc.) and by an envisaged ultimate recipient of the translated text (whether the recipient has any legal background, previous experience in legal transactions conducted in English, etc.).