The effect of textual complecity of contract clauses on contractual disputes

Abstract

The heart of every’ construction project is a contract, which plays a dominant role in preventing and resolving disputes by providing comprehensive coverage of all the items of work, duties and responsibilities of the contracting parties, and conflict resolution mechanisms related to all contingencies. By developing an acceptable level of communication among parties through standard and particular contract clauses, a smooth functioning of a construction project without contractual disputes can be achieved. Textual complexity’ can be described as the difficulty of a text to read and understand it by the users. Readability is text-centred; while understandability measures text-reader interaction and is a broader concept. Readability thus measures the textual difficulty’ of a passage; while understandability measures the ability of a reader to gain knowledge from a text, and is contingent not only on syntactical difficulty, but also on reader characteristics such as the reader's background, prior knowledge, interest, and general reading ability. The readability together with understandability’ will offer a better measurement on the level of textual complexity. The author identifies that the textual complexity of contract clauses in terms of readability and understandability has a relationship with the frequency of referring to them in contractual disputes. When the readability and understandability of contract clauses are low, the frequency oj those clauses being referred to in contractual disputes increases. Further, the study revealed that even though the particular conditions are prepared with the intention of making the contract clauses easier, the readability of them become more low and complex at its alteration.