CALVINO’S “ANTILINGUA” AND THE LANGUAGE OF THE ADMINISTRATIVE LAW

Il sottoscritto, essendosi recato nelle prime ore antimeridiane nei locali dello scantinato per eseguire l’avviamento dell’impianto termico, dichiara d’essere casualmente incorso nel rinvenimento di un quantitativo di prodotti vinicoli, situati in posizione retrostante al recipiente adibito al contenimento del combustibile, e di avere effettuato l’asportazione di uno dei detti articoli nell’intento di consumarlo durante il pasto pomeridiano, non essendo a conoscenza dell’avvenuta effrazione dell’esercizio soprastante27.

The main feature of ‘antilingua’ (anti-language), Calvino says, is «the semantic terror, the escape in front of every word that has a meaning in itself, as if fiasco, wood or coal were obscene words, as if to go, find, know would indicate shameful actions». This use of language, the writer continues, denounces «the lack of a true relationship with life». Calvin called “antilingua” the awkward and artificial language used by the sergeant, and, unfortunately, by many others: «Every day, for an automatic process, hundreds of thousands of our fellow citizens mentally translate with the speed of electronic machines the Italian language in antilingua. Lawyers and officials, ministerial cabinets and boards of directors, editors of newspapers, they write, think and speak in antilingua». From this point of view the approach of Law and Literature is particularly useful for linguistic analysis of (administrative) law as an antidote to the excesses that the uncontrolled use of language leads. It is important to measure, in a comparative perspective, the negative impact and the positive one that the language of the law can have, in terms of effectiveness and efficiency of the public administration. First, the language of administrative law is to be considered a specific language (or special language), or a variety of diaphasic language that is conditioned by the function and by the context of communicative interaction: used in specific disciplinary and professional areas, distinct from the base language for some of its rhetorical-stylistic and lexical features. In short, the administrative language is split into many sub manifolds. For this reason, it is often poorly understandable not only for citizens but also for officials belonging to another administration than the one that has written the document. The language of the bureaucracy does not seem to possess a specialized lexicon, but draws from the vocabulary of other languages depending on the subject from time to time addressed. It is undeniable, however, that it, like all sub codes, is provided with a technical vocabulary of which the legal language is certainly the

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CALVINO, Italo. «L’antilingua» pp. 122-126. The new language, which Calvino called antilingua’ (‘anti-language’) was perhaps well suited to the neocapitalist society Italy had become, but Pasolini thought it would be a duller language. He did not like the shape things had taken, but he recognised that this was the first time Italy really had a national language that was not merely a literary language. His prognosis for expressivity in Italian was probably too drastic, and he overestimated the influence of technical language. He was right, however, that Italian at least seemed to have arrived as a national language, although it was too soon to predict the extent of any increased spirit of unification this would encourage. POZZATO, Maria Pia. Dall’antilingua al linguaggio efficace. in Grandi, Roberto. La comunicazione pubblica. Teorie, casi, profili normativi. Roma: Carocci Editore. 2007.

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predominant source. Therefore it can be concluded that the administrative language is the sum of two components: a general, mostly legal, common to all administrations; and a specific, related to the single sector administrated. The simplification, clarification and improvement in terms of effectiveness of the administrative language, therefore, involve the acquisition of complex linguistic-communicative skills. For this reason it is necessary to refer to theoretical models which can be very useful for our work on public textuality.

2.1 Sabatini’s Linguistic Model

According to the model proposed by Sabatini28 the administrative texts fall into the category of the texts “very strict” or “with very binding speech” in the sense that are binding for reader’s interpretation, as well as for author’s stylistic choices. The decoding of the message by the receiver does not have to be creative and subjective, but strictly adhering to the communicative intentions of the issuer.

2.1.1 Very Binging Texts

a) Scientific: Scientific essays and treaties;

b) Juridical and prescriptive: Laws and Decrees Law/Legislative; Administrative acts; regulations; Official Communications; Notice to the public.

c) Technical: Technical manuals; Technical reports.

2.1.2 Texts on the Average Binding

a) Informative: Treaties and Manuals of study; Encyclopaedias.

b) Expositive: Essays on social, historical, political, economic, philosophical topics. c) Informative: Newspaper articles and magazines;

d) Generally informative: Guidebooks; Descriptive texts

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SABATINI, Francesco (adapted from). Analisi del Linguaggio giuridico. Il testo normativo in una tipologia generale dei testi. In: D’Antonio, Mario. Corso di studi superiori legislativi 1988-1989. Padova: Cedam, pp. 675-724.

145 2.1.3 A Little Binding Texts

a) Literary Prose: Fiction; Diaristic; Fables; Dramas; Literary nonfiction b) Literary poetry: Poems

This model does not privilege a cognitive and functional perspective, it is based on the relationship between sender and recipient. Sabatini, through a communicative agreement with the recipient, determines an interpretative constraint more or less strong, with clear consequences for the linguistic formulation of the message. This category is divided into three intermediate categories or subgroups, each of which covers a specific function and provides for certain consequences on the pragmatic level in case of refusal or breach of the communicative covenant. The structure of these texts has a rigid form. The legal text is formulated according to the scheme: Subject (ex. President of the Republic) - Motivation (references to laws and regulations) - Performative verb (decrees, provides grants, etc.) - Arrangement.

In particular, in the legal textuality are activated linguistic mechanisms aimed at explicitness as follows:

• The significance of the verbs are fully saturated and, in particular, has always indicated the subject of the sentence;

• Conjunctions are used only as phrasal connectives; • Do not use interrogative or exclamatory sentences.

2.2 Textuality and Language for the Public Administrations

The bureaucratic textuality not only shares in many cases the strongly binding character of the legal textuality, but inherits from this various textual, grammatical and syntactical aspects (nominalization, double negation, complex syntax even with subordinate high-grade, large presence of participles and gerunds) and lexical and stylistic characters (archaisms, latinisms, formulations periphrastic). On the other hand the language of bureaucracy has a nucleus quite limited of specific technicalities; part of its vocabulary is drawn from the common language or from other sub-codes much more specialized, such as the legal language or sub-codes of economy and technology. If we think back to the model proposed by Sabatini, we see that the legal textuality and the administrative one are associated to a similar type of issuer, when not identical,

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and to the same channel, the writing. Instead are different the referent and even more the recipient and the context. This combination of elements is well summarized in the Manual of Style edited by Fioritto29. To facilitate the communicative efficacy of the text and therefore an easier fulfilment of the provisions will be preferable an appropriate focus of the author and the recipient; a structure of the document according to the scheme subject-available-motivation, using, if possible, an accessible conversational style30.

2.3 Simplification, Purification, Reduction of Administrative Language

Since the early nineties was born in Italy a new sensibility for the quality and transparency of public communication, and has started a movement to reform the administrative language, which aims to make it clearer and more accessible to citizens. Why simplify the administrative language? The reasons are manifold. Firstly, this corresponds to an obvious need for democracy. The Article 97 of the Italian Constitution enshrines the principles of «good performance» and «impartiality» of the administration, and art. 98 Cost. provides: “Public servants are at the exclusive service of the Nation”: an administration that explains itself in an obscure way can not have a good performance, because it meets difficulties that make it inefficient; can not be impartial, creating an unjust discrimination between citizens based on their level of education; especially, can not be truly at the service of the nation. There are also economic reasons: many studies have highlighted the substantial economic savings realized by organizations that have adopted a policy of plain language. Finally, there is a question of image. The discursive choices

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FIORITTO, Alfredo. Manuale di stile, Strumenti per semplificare il linguaggio delle amministrazioni pubbliche. Bologna: Il Mulino, 1997, p. 41. The Author, in the chapter entitled Writing Simple and Linear Sentences, states: “Simple and linear sentences are monoclausal, i.e. they consist of a single clause with a subject, verb and some complements”. A heading makes the recommendation more explicit, suggesting “Prefer coordinate sentences to subordinate sentences”. Although a concession is made to soften this suggestion where appropriate (“Even if it is not always possible to write monoclausal sentences, they should be kept as short and simple as possible”), it is nonetheless contrary to the stylistic tradition of Italian prose. This recommendation may be viewed as an example of recovering naturalness in comparison to the codified syntactic complexity of writing in Italy as seen historically. But in a language which expresses the logical relationship between sentences largely through subordinate nexuses, there is a risk that excessive coordination will require the reader to infer and reconstruct the logical links between the sentences (this is therefore a typical example of simplification which, in the end, results in a more complex decoding process for the text).

30

Fioritto, Aflredo, (edited by), Manuale di stile, Strumenti per semplificare il linguaggio delle amministrazioni pubbliche. p. 44. makes the following suggestion: “To avoid ambiguity and difficult comprehension on the part of the reader, the subject of the sentence should always be specified”. The recommendation in the Italian version of the How to Write Clearly pamphlet prepared by the Directorate General for Translation of the European Commission is more nuanced and more correct: “Name the agents of each action if they cannot be clearly identified”. A strict interpretation of the first suggestion would, in fact, result in the construction of emphatic sentences, given that Italian does not require the subject to be stated. Stating the subject in a sentence places emphasis on it, which naturally increases if the same subject is repeated in subsequent sentences (that is, using the rhetorical device of anaphora).

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contribute to the construction of the identity of those who make them. Adopting a clear language, the public administration becomes an entity that has consideration and respect for the citizen, rather than as an authoritative government organization. Well-structured texts, graphically treated, purified from dusty bureaucratic formulas, feed the image of a modern and efficient administration. The clarity of the texts enhances the perception that the readers have of their authors. The reasons of simplification have been expressed with particular effectiveness by Sabino Cassese31, in the preface to the Code of style according to which «Acts, forms, modules that reject the citizen. Expressions out of common usage. These are also the causes of the gap between citizens and the state, which is debating in high-sounding terms, without remedy them. And to repair it, we must also begin from the style of language that the public offices use to communicate with their customers».

2.4 Regulatory Developments: Legislative Reforms to Simplify the Language of Administrative Law

The movement for the simplification of the administrative language was driven by a series of regulatory innovations that have given rise to what has often been called a “Copernican revolution” in relations between public administration and citizens, because it has determined a shift from a conception that saw the administration as a closed, inaccessible authority to an idea of open, accessible, transparent public administration: a “glass house”. The Italian initiatives never evolved into a fully-fledged, systematic and ongoing campaign. To tell the truth, a wide-ranging project was launched in 2002 by Minister Franco Frattini the “Chiaro!” (Make it clear!) project, but the led to an equally rapid closure of the project and the abandonment of any government commitment to the so-called simplification of administrative language, with the exception of a sporadic initiative under Minister Mario Baccini in 2005. Many of the improvements in institutional writing in Italy were brought about precisely by this cooperation between lawyers, linguists and civil servants. The most recent result is the publication of a Guide to Drafting Administrative Acts: Rules and Suggestions32, sponsored by the National Research Council’s

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CASSESE, Sabino. Prefazione. In: Codice di stile delle comunicazioni scritte ad uso delle amministrazioni pubbliche. a cura del Dipartimento della funzione pubblica, Presidenza del Consiglio dei Ministri. Roma. 1993, p. 9; CASSESE, Sabino. Lo Stato introvabile. Roma: Donzelli. 1998. p. 59.

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Guida alla redazione degli atti amministrativi. Regole e suggerimenti (2011), edited by the working group established by the Institute of Legal Information Theory and Techniques and the Accademia della Crusca, Florence, Ittig-Cnr [cited as Guida (2011)].

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Institute of Legal Information Theory and Techniques (ITTIG) and by the Accademia della Crusca (the Italian Language Institute). The double impetus originating from the world of research and from those who actually draft texts in the public institutions was also expressed through the establishment in 2005 of a Network for Excellence in Institutional Italian (REI) at the behest of the Italian department of the Directorate General for Translation. This is a voluntary group of translators and drafters of institutional and academic texts, and particularly of linguists and lawyers, who are studying legal and administrative language. Once this process had run its course, however, Tullio De Mauro, another professor who had also been a minister, pointed out that ‘much of the analysis, preparatory work and proposals was started at the time that Cassese33 was the Minister for Public Administration, in the early nineties. A lot of work was put into teaching the administrations to communicate in a comprehensible way (...) but the results are more modest than we had hoped those many years ago34. In fact, it is apparent in the way that laws are drafted that the recommendations for using more understandable language have barely been absorbed, despite the series of documents with suggestions on drafting legal texts published over the years35. However, given that the results are more meagre than we hoped, we must ask ourselves whether any of the constituent parts of the campaigns to reform administrative language had inherent limits or, at least, limits when applied to a language such as Italian, which has its own history and internal structure.