STAGES OF LEGAL DISCOURSE DEVELOPMENT IN LINGUISTICS

Abstract

Although the term ‘discourse’ has been defined by many researchers in linguistics, it still remains an abstract concept. This is because there are different views on discourse and text, discourse and language, and discourse and speech oppositions, and the study of this problem in linguistics is of a particular importance. Besides linguistics, ‘discourse’ is also studied in sociology, anthropology, philosophy, and other fields as the primary research object of social theories. And this requires an interdisciplinary study of this issue. Today discourse is considered in the framework of Forensic linguistics, which connects jurisprudence and linguistics, and the disclosure of the linguistic and extralinguistic features of legal discourse is one of the main goals and objectives of this field. Institutional discourse, which differs from colloquial discourse in terms of direction, speech constraints, structure, purpose, and other characteristics, it is divided into political, administrative, religious, advertising, and other subtypes. Legal discourse, which is a type of institutional discourse, manifests itself as a statutory institutional dialogue and involves its participants, namely the judge-defendant-lawyer-prosecutor- witness, and so on. This article defines legal discourse as the object of research, and before the author writes about the development of this discourse, she describes the use of discourse as a linguistic term, its typology, legal discourse, and its peculiarities. Moreover, the research article examines the English and Uzbek legal discourse within specific periods and provides the legal language and terms that are actively employed in each period. The study aims to compare the periodic formation of the English and Uzbek legal discourse, as well as to present the changes and differences in the legal language and terminology over the centuries and to illustrate them with examples. To this end, the opinions of various linguists and lawyers, and many historical sources have been provided and scientifically substantiated.