한국과 미국의 법문화적 차이에서 오는 법률용어 비교 연구 - 도로교통법을 중심으로 -

Each law culture of Korea and the United States has developed in the establishment and the growth of each nation through their different ways. The different cultural backgrounds of the two nations, thus, lead to the law divided into Continental and British America system. There are as differences in legal terms between Korea and the United States just as they do in their legal cultures and systems. Korean culture has been based on Chinese characters influenced by Confucianism, so its legal terms are abstractive and implicative. Therefore, the law states shortly and does not specifically, resulting in leaving great discretion to administrative agency. The brevity and implication has the following advantages: the law system is simple and easy to find the contents of the law. The other hand, the abstractiveness has its weakness : no ground articles in the law and they are difficult to be understood due to excessive compactness. On contrast, the legal terms of the United States consist of usual words used in everyday lives of the people, and they are descriptive. The strength is that every person can understand what they mean and the descriptive statements are specific, while the weakness is that they are lack of brevity and the descriptive statements are too extensive to find their related articles. The law is the stronghold for keeping social system in order and puts its highest purpose in protecting the basic rights of the people. In addition, a Modern Law-Governed Country fundamentally pursues for the law to be made out by every persons. It is necessary, therefore, that the law should be regulated to be understood by all the people, and its legal terms should be more easier and be adjustable for modern social lives. In conclusion, the disadvantages in the legal terms of Korea and the United States mentioned above needs to be improved to be accessed by all the people without difficulty.