The cognitive approach in analyzing legal terms in the international treaties’ texts

Abstract

Cognitive linguistics dealing with the description and explanation of mental structuresand processes connected with language knowledge is viewed as a flexible framework rather thanone widely accepted theory; therefore, it is applicable in the study of terms. The article aimsto analyze legal terms from cognitive linguistics’ perspective. More specifically, we apply acognitive approach in interpreting legal terms and explain the way being used in the internationaltreaties’ texts by presenting the document’s frame structure. We reveal the legal document’sframes with the terminals and lexical expressions in Kazakh and English. The study analyzesthe agreement document as a script due to a F. Ungerer and H-J. Schmidt’s framework. Theterms are undergone the concept structure research technique with presenting paradigmatic andsyntagmatic relationships.