I fogli informativi delle banche italiane: tra comprensibilità e chiarezza, tra linguistica e diritto

This study is in the area of forensic linguistics that aims to make legal documents understandable, readable and complete. The starting point of this analysis is the well-known but still unresolved problem of complexity and lack of clarity of bank information sheets offered to consumers, as such stemming from the use of overly rigid and convoluted language. The effectiveness of correct information, without sacrificing legal meaning, is designed to safeguard the essence and content of the document. Achieving correct and timely information could result from a fair trade-off between comprehensibility and legal- textual accuracy, which would ensure that the customer makes informed decisions free from misunderstanding, thus contributing to a more balanced relationship between banking institutions and the weaker party. Through a qualitative-quantitative analysis, carried out using the Gulpease index, the linguistic characteristics of some pre-contractual brochures related to bank current accounts were studied, with the aim of checking their clarity and comprehensibility by potential customers.