Pragmatic Aspects of Judicial Discourse: Zooming in on a Nuanced Language Use

Abstract

Over recent decades, judgments as a legal genre have received increased attention from linguists. Such a trend has contributed to a better understanding of the macro-and micro-linguistic aspects of this highly complex legal genre. However, the pragmatic aspects of judgments as a specific text type remain largely neglected in the current literature. Therefore, this paper aims to contribute to this line of research by discussing the pragmatic effects arising from the use of meta-argumentative verbs in a corpus of judgments delivered by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR judgments, henceforth). Accordingly, the paper will show that the pragmatic effects of the recurrent meta-argumentative verbs in ECHR judgments can be analyzed through the prism of politeness and legitimization strategies. In addition, suggestions will be provided regarding the ways in which corpus data can be used for raising learners’ awareness of the nuanced language that is pertinent to juridical settings.