Abstract

Factuality remains the highest virtue of a legal text. The paper finds how this virtue is jeopardized by the presence of logical fallacies. The stylistics analysis is performed for identification of linguistic features of logical fallacies in legal language. Two randomly selected verdicts of the Supreme Court of Pakistan are selected for analysis. Analysis of verdicts reveals that factuality is compromised by fallacies with distinctive stylistic features. These features include the fallacies of relevance, defective induction and ambiguity. Lexical choices, syntactically complicated structure and graphological markers of style contribute to the formation of these fallacies. The findings establish that stylistic aspect themselves contribute to the projection of fallacies in verdicts, therefore, the study recommends avoiding stylistic formulae of the legalese or legal registers which lead to the formation of logical fallacies in the legal language.

Full Text
Paper version not known

Talk to us

Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have

Schedule a call

Disclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.