Abstract
Being a complex type of discourse, legal discourse is realized through legal texts written in legal language, which are regarded as special-purpose texts different from other kinds of texts in respect of their text-internal and text-external properties. A great variety of legal texts reflects the diversity of law itself. As different legal texts tend to have different functional, structural and linguistic features, they are classified into genres on the basis of different criteria. The analysis of genres of legal texts contributes to the overall understanding and construction of legal discourse in general and legal texts in particular. This paper aims at the overview and discussion of genres of legal texts focusing on specific features of legal texts and criteria of the classification of legal texts into genres.
Highlights
Law, which plays a vital role in reinforcing communication between nations and peoples, is expressed mainly through legal language and legal texts (Kirby 2007: x)
Works on legal translation focus on the analysis of problems faced by translators or interpreters of legal texts as well as translation strategies and methods applied in the translation of different genres of legal texts (Šarčević 2000, Varo and Hughes 2002, Biel and Engberg 2013)
Being a separate type of discourse, legal discourse is comprised of a great variety of different legal texts which are further classified into genres
Summary
Law, which plays a vital role in reinforcing communication between nations and peoples, is expressed mainly through legal language and legal texts (Kirby 2007: x). Hatim and Mason define genres as “conventional forms of texts associated with particular types of social occasions” (Hatim and Mason 1997: 218), whereas Bhatia offers a broader definition: Genre is a recognizable communicative event, characterized by a set of communicative purpose(s) identified and mutually understood by the members of the professional or academic community in which it regularly occurs Most often it is highly structured and conventionalized with constraints or allowable contributions in terms of their intent, positioning, form and functional value. Referring to Steen (1999), Lee proposes that genres should be treated as basic-level categories characterized by seven attributes: domain (e.g. art, religion, law), medium (e.g. spoken, written, electronic), content (topics, themes), form (e.g. generic superstructures or other text-structural patterns), function (e.g. informative, persuasive, instructive), and language (linguistic characteristics) (Lee 2001: 49)
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