Languages of the Law: Vocabularies and Uses

Law can be seen as a motley of different languages deployed in the legal domain. The authors of the chapters share interest in what determines the scope of the vocabulary of these languages as well as in the way they are used. Thus, both the linguistic and pragmatic turns occurring in the philosophy of language are explored as exercising not mere ripple effects on legal scholarship, but rather as having a huge impact on jurisprudence.

The chapters in this volume tackle three broad problem areas to offer a coherent picture of languages of the law. The first section is devoted to legal language at large, including reflections on its nature and some distinct functions it performs in the legal domain. The second section of the book focuses on the distinctly legal and pragmatic dimensions of some fragments of vocabulary, used either in legal texts or in legal scholarship. In the third section of the volume, authors research specific questions regarding legal language and legal reasoning.