Conclusions

This book has unveiled the usages, frequency rates and equivalents of neutral formulae across different legal corpora and legal genres. Amongst the major findings of this book, three relevant aspects have emerged: (1) the high formulaicity of legal discourse, be it written or spoken, (2) the variability, flexibility and variety of the formulae in European spoken legal discourse, often resulting in the oversimplification of legal language and (3) the fact that target texts (or equivalent texts in various languages) may be less formulaic (or, better, less formal) due to linguistic and stylistic reasons, and not because of legal system specificities (at least as concerns the general legal formulae addressed).