Abstract
There are many different ways in which modern Corpus Linguistics can be used to enrich and broaden our understanding of legal discourse. Based on the central principle of co-occurrence and co-selection in language construction, this paper reviews current applications of Corpus Linguistics in the area of legal discourse focusing on issues ranging from phraseology, variation in legal discourse, legal translation, register and genre perspectives on legal discourse, legal discourse in forensic contexts to evaluative language in judicial settings. It revisits the notion of ‘corpus’ and it highlights the relevance of various types of legal corpora and computer tools in legal linguistic research.
Highlights
Corpus Linguistics has revolutionized the way language is understood and explored today leading to a proliferation of empirical studies on virtually any aspect of language
Recent years have seen an unprecedented growth of corpus-informed research into legal discourse, with its traditional interest in areas such as variation, phraseology, translation, terminology or phraseology, only to be paralleled by explorations carried out by both legal academics and practitioners embracing corpus linguistics methods as a new tool [91, 93, 107]
One consequence of this trend is that the problem for the researcher has shifted from accessing large enough quantities of data to elaborating a range of reliable and consistent analytical methods informed by an appropriate theoretical framework, all geared towards addressing specific, often interdisciplinary, research issues
Summary
Corpus Linguistics has revolutionized the way language is understood and explored today leading to a proliferation of empirical studies on virtually any aspect of language. Recent years have seen an unprecedented growth of corpus-informed research into legal discourse, with its traditional interest in areas such as variation, phraseology, translation, terminology or phraseology, only to be paralleled by explorations carried out by both legal academics and practitioners embracing corpus linguistics methods as a new tool [91, 93, 107]. These are mainly concerned with legal interpretation, especially regarding the ordinary meaning of terms. This article is in no way confined to research subsumed carried out under the mantle of either ‘Legal Linguistics’ or ‘Computer-Assisted Legal Linguistics
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