First Principles of Business Law

6.2. The 'literal' approach to interpretation

When deciding what words or phrases in an Act mean, a judge will begin by asking: 'What does the language of the statute mean, in its ordinary and natural sense?' This is sometimes called the 'literal' approach to interpretation. The popular or ordinary meaning of words is found by consuting a good dictionary such as the Macquarie Dictionary or the Shorter Oxford Dictionary. 

In deciding the literal meaning of words, a court is also required to take account of the purpose the legislature had when enacting the legislation. How this is done is explained below.

The literal approach is a sensible starting point but it doesn't resolve every interpretation question. For example, the definition in a dictionary may give alternative meanings for a word and it may not be clear which of these meanings should be preferred.  Also, the meaning of words may change over time. For example, the words 'calculating device' used 100 years ago would not have included electronic calculators, but they probably would today. When the meaning of a word may have changed over time, the proper question to ask is: 'Would the legislature have intended to include the matter now in question as within the expression chosen, had they known about it?'