Please enable JavaScript.
Coggle requires JavaScript to display documents.
The Nature of Legal Language (The normative nature of legal language (Law…
The Nature of Legal Language
The normative nature of legal language
Legal language is a normative language
(Relation) Norm production
(Relation) Norm expression
(Relation) Norm creation
(Cause) Law basic function is
guiding human behaviour and regulating human relations
Law is distinguished from
most other types of human institutions because of realise concepts of
rights
Goals of low
Thus, law exists as a set of prescriptions having the form of imperatives,defining and enforcing the arrangements, relationships, procedures and patterns of behaviour that are to be followed in a society.
liberty
justice
equal protaction
equity
general welfare
Language of low is predominantly
prescriptive, directive and imperative
Function of it are direct, influence or modify people's beheviour
This is realized primarily through language
In the words of Olivecrona, the legal language must be viewed primarily as a means to this end
The language of the law is a normative language. Its predominant function is to
direct people’s behavior in society. It authoritatively posits legal norms.
The performative nature of legal language
Language is performative
Speech
word assosiation
Legal effects and legal consequences are obtained by merely uttering certain words
Language can perform
Conferring rights
Prescribing prohibition
Granting permission
Legal speech acts are said to be
constitutive of their effects
actions
Danet's classification of legal language use into different types of speech acts
Expressives
Express the speakers’ psychological state about or attitude to aproposition
Declaratives
Successful performance brings
A correspondence between their propositional content and reality
Sub-category of representative declarations for certain institutional situations would require the speaker to have certain authority
The legislative stipulation of rights and of definitions of concepts
Commissives
Commit the speaker to do something in the future
Directives
Future-oriented speech acts
Seeking to change the world
Seeking to get
someone to do something
Most prominent in legislation that imposes obligations
Representatives
Assert the truth of a proposition
Commit the speaker to something being the case
The performative nature of language is indispensable to law in achieving its purpose of regulating human behavior and society and setting out obligation, prohibition and permission