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7 Int'l J. Semiotics L. 5 (1994)

handle is hein.journals/intjsemi7 and id is 1 raw text is: International Journal for the Semiotics of Law Vol.VII no.19 [19941 LINGUISTICS AND LEGAL DISCOURSE: AN INTRODUCTION by DENNIS KURZON Hebrew University, Jerusalem I The interest taken by linguists in legal language had been fairly sporadic in the distant past. Until Crystal and Davy' devoted one chapter in their book, Investigating English Style (1969), to legal lan- guage, or more precisely to the language of written contracts, only scholars of the Prague School of Linguistics in the inter-war years in their more social2 approach to linguistics viewed language in func- tional terms. Although at the time, structuralism was the dominant theory among American linguists (e.g. Bloomfield) and among many European linguists (e.g. Hjelmslev), the Praguians considered lan- guage foremost as the principal device of communicating messages in all branches of human society; the law is regarded as one such branch (e.g. Havranek,3 Peska4). The means by which effective communi- cation is achieved in any field are reflected in the occurrence of particular linguistic structures. Some of the linguistic structures may often be recognised as constituting a set of distinguishing features of that particular use or function of language (what is often termed register). After Crystal and Davy's work, it still took some time for a fur- ther, more comprehensive study of legal language to emerge. The 1 D. Crystal, & D. Davy, Investigating English Style (London: Longman, 1969). 2 Social in a broad sense, and not sociological which is a discipline- specific term used today, but not addressed by the Prague linguists. 3 B. Havranek, The functional differentiation of the standard language, in Paul Garvin (ed.), A Prague School Reader on Esthetics, Literary Structure and Style (Washington: Georgetown University Press, 1964 [19321), 3-16. 4 Z. Peska, The language of legislators (in Czech), Slovo a Slovesnost 5 (1939), 32-40.

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