Gesetzesverständlichkeit aus rechtslinguistischer Perspektive.

Klagen über die Unverständlichkeit von Rechtsvorschriften sind so alt wie das Rechtssystem selbst. Weitaus jünger in der Bundesrepublik sind praktische Versuche, die Verständlichkeit von Gesetzestexten systematisch zu verbessern. Seit 2009 sind am Bundesjustizministerium zwei Arbeitseinheiten - der »Redaktionsstab Rechtssprache« sowie das »Sprachbüro« - mit der professionellen Redaktion von Normtextentwürfen betraut. Das Buch dokumentiert ein Projekt (2019-2021), das im Auftrag diese linguistische Gesetzesredaktion evaluiert und Empfehlungen erarbeitet. Aus der bisherigen Forschung heraus wird ein holistisches Modell zur Beurteilung der Verständlichkeit von Normtext(entwürf)en entwickelt und die gesetzesredaktionelle Praxis empirisch sowohl qualitativ als auch quantifizierend untersucht. Untersuchungsgrundlage sind ausgewählte Rechtsetzungsverfahren, Gesetzesentwürfe, Interviews mit RedakteurInnen und LegistInnen sowie eine Befragung von verschiedenen Rezipientengruppen.

Ekkehard Felder is Professor of German Linguistics and one of the directors of the European Centre for Linguistics (EZS). Since 2005 he has coordinated the international research network Language Knowledge (http://sprache-und-wissen.de/). He studied German language and literature, political science and economics in Munich, Madrid and Freiburg. He received his doctorate in 1994 from the University of Freiburg, his second state examination for grammar schools in 1996, and his habilitation in 2002 from the University of Münster. He is the editor of numerous book series and has held several fellowships (see https://www.gs.uni-heidelberg.de/sprache02/felder/). Janine Luth is an Academic Employee at the Faculty of Modern Languages in Heidelberg. She is managing director at the EZS (European Linguistics Centre). She studied German language and literature, Law and Art History at Heidelberg University and received her Ph.D. in Linguistics from Heidelberg University. Her main research topics are language and law, discourse studies as well as scientific management and scientific language in Europe. Friedemann Vogel is a full professor of Computer-Assisted Socio- and Discourse Linguistics at the University of Siegen, coordinator of the Heidelberg Group of Legal Linguistics founded in 1984 and former founding president of the »International Language and Law Association« (ILLA, 2017-2019). In 2012, he developed the world's largest reference corpus of German-language law (JuReKo) and, together with Dr. Dr. Hanjo Hamann, heads the »International Research Group Computer Assisted Legal Linguistics«. Main research areas: language and law, linguistic discourse and image analysis, political and media-mediated communication as well as computer-assisted, quantifying approaches to linguistic patterns as complementary methods to qualitative hermeneutics and ethnography. More information at: www.friedemann-vogel.de. Fabian Deus is a research assistant in the team for Computer Assisted Socio- and Discourse Linguistics (CoSoDi) at the German Department of the University of Siegen (Germany). He studied German and Philosophy and received a PhD at the University of Siegen. His research focuses on language and law, discourse linguistics and strategic communication as well as history of concepts (Begriffsgeschichte). He is currently leading a research project on right-wing discourse strategies in social media. Joline Schmallenbach is a research assistant at the Department of German at the University of Siegen. After receiving her master's degree in English and German Studies from the University of Siegen in 2020, she is now doing her doctorate in the field of socio- and discourse linguistics. She is also managing editor of the International Journal of Language and Law (JLL).