International Law and Linguistics: Pieces of an Interdisciplinary Puzzle

Abstract

In the framework of the empirical turn in international law, international lawyers are increasingly turning to specific linguistic theories to gain insights into language-related processes in international law, such as interpretation or law-making. The present article addresses these current, selective approaches by offering a broad overview and taxonomy of the most prominent and relevant directions of research in linguistics. It addresses in turn discourse analysis and text linguistics, syntax, semantics, pragmatics, historical linguistics and etymology, lexicography, corpus linguistics and computational linguistics, sociolinguistics and forensic linguistics, loosely following the phases of the ‘life cycle’ of international law in which they could most fruitfully be used to study and practise international law.