Legislative Clichés: Specifics, Types and Functions

Abstract

The article considers expressions (cliches) used in modern laws and model legislative acts. The concepts of "legislative cliché" and "hackneyed phrase" are differentiated. Approaches to research (discursive and genre-stylistic) and their correlation are grounded. Varieties of clichés (general, interdisciplinary, special, actional-imperative, frame-reference), functions and other features of legislative clichés are considered. Firstly, the communication of information that is universal for the legal regulation of social relations (general, interdisciplinary legislative clichés). Secondly, the identification of a specific area of regulated relations (special clichés). Thirdly, the specifying of actions that are performed in relation to legislative concepts, structural units or the legislative text as a whole (actional-imperative legislative clichés). Fourthly, the specifying of the structural units of the law, as well as ways of referring to the text of the law or part of the law (frame-reference legislative clichés). Common features of legislative clichés are distinguished: integrity of meaning, semantic stability, uniformity of structure, contextual stability (locality), regularity of reproduction, polyfunctionality; as well as potential (additional) features: transformation of the meaning, addition of components (broadening of semantics), variation of use, equivalence (possibility of substitution) but not identity. It is concluded that the legislative cliche is a discursive marker of the speech genre "Law". Research material: texts of federal laws and model acts, dictionaries of legislative terms.