Year: 2015
Type: article
Abstract: The Performance of Legal Discourse*This volume is concerned with the language used in legal discourse (English, German and French) in general, and with contract law in particular.Language, central to human affairs, assumes a particularly critical role in law.In fact, in a very basic sense, law would not exist without language.There are two primary functions of law; one is the ordering of human relations, the other the restoration of social order when order breaks down (see, e.g.Danet l980, l985).With regard to the former, the function of the law is two-fold: regulative and constitutive.Law defines and regulates relationships between judicial entities; and by means of law, new relations are created where none existed before (cf., e.g.marriage ceremonies).Language used in activities aimed at restoring social order unfolds in civil law in conflicts between individuals and in criminal law in conflicts between the individual and the state.This volume is concerned with the language used in 'the ordering of human relations'.Special interest is paid to the language and style used for the specific purpose of constructing documents, of laying down the law, which, in a broad sense, includes not only legislation, but also documents pertaining to private law, such as contracts, wills, and deeds.An analysis is also provided of the language employed in judgments, and, finally, conceptual/cultural problems relating to the translation of legal discourse are discussed.* Some of the studies presented in this volume have been financed partly by The Danish Research Council for the Humanities, and Irene Baron, Karen Lauridsen, and Anna Trosborg would like to express their gratitude for this support.The data of investigation have been drawn from a corpus of legal language within the field of contract law.The corpus consits of three
Author: Anna Trosborg
Language: English
Subfield: Law
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W2272036655