A Stylistic Analysis with a Focus on Lexical (Binomial) Expressions - Учебное пособие

MASARYK UNIVERSITY IN BRNO FACULTY OF EDUCATION DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE The Language of Law - A Stylistic Analysis with a Focus on Lexical (Binomial) Expressions THESIS Brno 2007 Contents Introduction Linguistic background Stylistic background The need for stylistics What is style? Stylistic analysis Text and Context, Text and Discourse Situation - the Extra-linguistic Context Levels of Stylistic Analysis Legal discourse The Domain of Legal Discourse Linguistic Description of the Legal Register Summary Historical background of legal english The anglo-saxon period The norman period towards modern legal english The language of simplified legal documents Summary On the issue of binomials Terminology and definitions The origin and use of binomials Linguistic characteristics of binomials Syntactic Aspects Semantic Aspects Phonetic and Rhythmic Aspects Summary Practical part Stylistic analysis The aim General characterization Analysis Graphological and Phonological Level Lexical Level Grammatical Level Discourse and Textual Level Conclusion Analyses of binomials Thematic structure Rheme Transition Theme Conclusion Semantic structure of binomials Semantic Opposition Semantic Homoeosemy Semantic Complementation Semantic Hyponymy Miscellaneous Relations Conclusion Conclusion Bibliography Introduction Communication is a means of transmitting information and there are several ways of how people can do so. One of them is language in its spoken and written forms. Communication means giving and getting different amounts of information and various characters and qualities of communicated messages at one time, which is conditioned by many factors such as the time, place and subject matter of what is being transmitted from the addressor to the addressee in a particular situation. The addressor communicates because he intends not only to exchange information, but he also aims at affecting the behaviour of the addressee. In perhaps more educated terms, it could be pointed out that language is the core of communication. Language as an instrument of communication presents a certain continuum of variations depending on numerous contextual aspects, such as the function of the text (e. g. whether directive, expository or narrative) ; the readership (experts, students, layman), and the role of the writer (expert, educated layman), and so on. In this sense, numerous language styles and varieties have come into existence. These are the grounds for the constant study of various domains of languages, that of law being one of them. The study of legal language has been affected by new theories introduced into linguistics, in particular the sociolinguistic approaches and the movement for simplification of legal discourse. Due to the active research of legal discourse since the mid-seventies, many linguistic properties of legal English are fairly well understood today. Even in this domain, there are two alternatives of discourse to be examined: oral and written. In the first case, for example, the lawyer-client interaction and courtroom interaction together with their linguistic strategies are investigated. The latter, though, is more frequently the object of study because it represents a referential norm and a point of comparison for most treatises. The active research in the field of law has shown how different the two media, the spoken and written, are. Spoken legal English is not just a spoken variant of the written text. It is a different genre at the same time because there is a very tight connection between what is said, how it is said and why, and the situation in which the speech is uttered. On the other hand, written legal English seems to be the other extreme - it is constant, stable and almost context-free. The language of law is the study object of this thesis. The theoretical part of this thesis is divided into four main chapters, each of which deals with different issues relating to the domain of law language. The aim of the chapters is to provide some basics in terms of some essential linguistic elements (Chapter One), stylistic background and the description of the legal register (Chapter Two), history of legal English (Chapter Three), and linguistic/stylistic description of binomials (Chapter Four). The character of the practical part stems from the theoretical base. There are two major objectives. The first one is aimed at a stylistic analysis of the sample documents under examination in this thesis. The other major objective includes two analyses, both of which are focused on binomials. More detailed descriptions of each objective and analysis are available in the respective chapters. Linguistic background language stylistics grammar Linguistics, part of which is stylistics, is a very complex field dealing with the study of language and its related issues. A vigorous comeback of rationalism into the scientific study of language in the sixties of the twentieth century resulted in the fact that lingu