Knowledge construction and legal discourse: The interdependence of perspective and visibility of characteristics

Abstract

In this paper, I investigate the impact that a change of background assumptions in the study of domain-specific communication like legal communication may have on the focus of such studies. Recent developments in linguistics, especially the inclusion of cognitive aspects like the necessary individuality of knowledge and the ongoing process of knowledge construction, challenge some of the traditional concepts in this field such as the concept of abstract sublanguages. These developments make it relevant to introduce approaches with a different focus as a supplement to the traditional approaches in order to achieve a fuller picture of domain-specific communication. By way of a specific example (a study of the concept Mord in Swiss criminal law), the empirical part of the paper shows which additional aspects of communication in the field of law become visible if we supplement the traditional approaches with approaches focusing on cognition and individual knowledge construction.