Syntactic Features of Legal Communication (The Study of English Wills)

Abstract

The investigation focuses on the study of syntactic means used in English wills. The contribution demonstrates the expressive potential of syntactic means; analyses means of minor and major syntax used in the genre under consideration. The paper reveals the frequency of their use. It also considers the question of appropriateness of expressive syntactic means for legal discourse and describes their functional-stylistic features. The research has allowed to outline the features of the syntactic arrange-ment of wills and to single out the most typical syntactic structures (nominative and verbal word combinations on the level of the minor syntax, complex sentences on the level of the major syntax). The contribution has also re-vealed syntactic expressive means used in English wills (inversion, syn-tactic repetition, including parallel construction, and polysyndeton) and has described their functional-stylistic features. The investigation has defined the functional status of the expressive syntactic means which encompasses clear and accurate expounding of the content and preservation of the text structure (which has shaped as a result of the historical development of the genre). The methodology of research include generalisation, description, definitive analysis, linguostylistic analysis, and context analysis.