Legal Terminology In Documents Composed In The 17th Century Yenisei Siberia

Abstract

This paper describes the thematic sets of legal terms used in the XVIIth century formal written language of Yenisei Siberia. It investigates special terminology used in judicial documents. The researchers analyzed judicial manuscripts of the XVIIth century Yenisei Siberia, which are stored in the Russian State Archive of Ancient Acts (RGADA) and are part of the Siberian Prikaz collection (Collection 214, Record 3). This paper analyzes special terminology found in the documents that were composed in 1639-1693 and are characteristic of the judicial language of Yenisei Siberia; it is therefore part of a larger research effort that seeks to produce a detailed description of the Russian vocabulary that existed when Russian as a national language was still at infancy. As legal language transitions from an order-like style to a novel bureaucratic style, use of many legal terms changes significantly. Such change can be studied by functional analysis of special legal terms found in location- and time-specific formal writing. Therefore, analysis of the official documents composed in Yenisei Siberia in the XVIIth century will help complete the general knowledge of thematic sets of Russian legal terms. For research material, the authors have used their own files, a total of 1,247 microcontexts.