The challenges of language: re-shaping legislative discourse(s) and text(s)

Abstract

In this paper Dr Giulia Pennisi, Associate Research Fellow, IALS explores how the European Commission developed and constructed two Green Papers in the field of labour law in order to provide a communicative response to the important economic, political and social changes affecting the European labour market. The author analyses these two texts as a combination of different discourses that, through the intentional use of lexico-grammatical resources, are strategically exploited to mould the norms and conventions typical of public documents such as Green Papers and consultation documents to promote a positive image of the European Union Institutions, while providing legislative drafters with very poor indications about the specific measures to take in order to put Commission’s indications into practice.