Translating Legalese: Deconstructing Lease Language for New Renters

This thesis investigates the relationship between legal English and the general public, focusing on the challenges laypersons encounter in reading contract language. By examining specific linguistic features of legal writing, along with the systems and practices of US law, this research highlights the problematic disconnect between the complexity of legalese and the fluency level of average citizens in this specialized variety of English. This issue is particularly salient in the realm of rental agreements for housing, given the mounting housing crisis and historically high eviction rates in the state of Oregon. The culmination of this research is a digital guidebook titled Translating Legalese: A Guidebook for Renters, intended to support tenants in navigating the landlord-tenant relationship and to facilitate greater literacy in the legal register. Designed to be accessible to the general public, the guidebook aims to narrow the imbalance of power created by opaque and archaic language forms and to empower renters to better self-advocate for their rights.