Responsibility Evasion in Anglo-American Legal Discourse

This podcast episode explores how legal language in Anglo-American law avoids naming responsibility. Drawing on Wei Yongqian’s 2025 study, we’ll uncover how 名词化 (míngcí huà, nominalization)—the grammatical shift from actions to abstract nouns—allows legal texts to obscure agency, enhance authority, and institutionalize law. From the U.S. Constitution to the U.K. Human Rights Act, we’ll see how words like regulation, liability, responsibility, and fairness package law as neutral, objective, and unquestionable—while subtly evading accountability. With insights from Foucault and comparative reflections on corporate law, AI governance, and human rights, this podcast asks: What does it mean when the very language of law hides responsibility?

Refer: 名词化视角下英美法系话语中的责任规避探析 (An Analysis of Responsibility Evasion in Anglo-American Legal Discourse from the Perspective of Nominalization, Wei Yongqian, 2025). Modern Linguistics 现代语言学, 2025, 13(9), 275-282
Published Online September 2025 in Hans. https://www.hanspub.org/journal/ml
https://doi.org/10.12677/ml.2025.139977

Time Stamps

00:00 - Nominalisation
03:03 - Making Something into a NOUN
05:29 - Foucault
06:12 - liability (责任, zérèn).
07:32 - The Words that Disguise
08:10 - high-frequency nominalisation
10:16 - "Mistakes Were Made"
11:45 - Why It Matters
12:39 - Democratic Transparency
12:56 - Corporate Accountability
13:15 - Emerging Technologies
14:37 - de-agentization

名词化 (míngcí huà) — Nominalization
语法隐喻 (yǔfǎ yǐnyù) — Grammatical Metaphor
责任 (zérèn) — Responsibility
责任规避 (zérèn guībì) — Responsibility Evasion
去行为者化 (qù xíngwéi zhě huà) — De-agentization
法律话语 (fǎlǜ huàyǔ) — Legal Discourse
合法性 (héfǎ xìng) — Legality
公平性 (gōngpíng xìng) — Fairness
福柯 (Fú kē) — Foucault
制度化 (zhìdù huà) — Institutionalization