Metaphors and Legal Language: A Few Comments on Ordinary, Specialised and Legal Meaning

Q2 Arts and Humanities Research in Language Pub Date : 2019-09-01 DOI:10.2478/rela-2019-0013

Sylwia Wojtczak, I. Witczak-Plisiecka

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引用次数: 4

Abstract

Abstract The present text offers a few comments on the metaphorical dimension of legal language and the nature of legal language as such. The authors discuss selected metaphors in the context of the Polish legislation with the aim to show how the metaphorical dimension of language can be used and abused. It is also demonstrated that the metaphorical dimension of language can cross-cut the interface between language and law on different levels. There are metaphors in legal texts that can be deliberately used to emphasise or cover selected aspects of meaning, and others that can just happen to act irrespective of any premeditated action on the part of the legislator. Finally, in a wider perspective, it is shown that the relation between ordinary language and the language of the law, i.e. ordinary meaning and legal meaning, may itself be seen as a relation between two domains within which metaphorical mapping takes place. It is claimed that the divide between the realm of law and the “real world” goes beyond a trivial division relative to expertise in the law and expertise in legal discourse, but can be better understood as the division between the legal community and the non-legal community including the academia where linguists reside.

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隐喻与法律语言:普通意义、专门意义与法律意义之评析

本文对法律语言的隐喻维度和法律语言的本质等问题进行了评述。作者在波兰立法的背景下讨论了所选择的隐喻，目的是展示语言的隐喻维度是如何被使用和滥用的。研究还表明，语言的隐喻维度可以在不同层面上跨越语言与法律的界面。法律文本中有一些隐喻可以被故意用来强调或涵盖意义的特定方面，而其他隐喻则可以碰巧采取行动，而不考虑立法者的任何预谋行动。最后，从更广泛的角度来看，普通语言和法律语言之间的关系，即普通意义和法律意义，本身可以被视为隐喻映射发生的两个领域之间的关系。据称，法律领域和“现实世界”之间的分歧超出了相对于法律专业知识和法律话语专业知识的微不足道的分歧，而是可以更好地理解为法律界和非法律界之间的分歧，包括语言学家所在的学术界。

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来源期刊

Research in Language Arts and Humanities-Language and Linguistics

CiteScore

0.40

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0.00%

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期刊介绍： Research in Language (RiL) is an international journal committed to publishing excellent studies in the area of linguistics and related disciplines focused on human communication. Language studies, as other scholarly disciplines, undergo two seemingly counteracting processes: the process of diversification of the field into narrow specialized domains and the process of convergence, strengthened by interdisciplinarity. It is the latter perspective that RiL editors invite for the journal, whose aim is to present language in its entirety, meshing traditional modular compartments, such as phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics, and offer a multidimensional perspective which exposes varied but relevant aspects of language, e.g. the cognitive, the psychological, the institutional aspect, as well as the social shaping of linguistic convention and creativity.