司法制度中的几个法律语言学问题

法律语言学就是将语言学应用于法律问题的学科,司法制度中与语言学相关问题:语言与法律的关系、法律诉讼中语言学家的介入、语言学家与律师的关系、陪审团指令的理解、语言学家作为专家证人出庭等方面应该引起关注。     

作为专家证人的语言学家在立法和司法活动中的价值

法学与语言学的日趋融合，法律语言学成为人们研究的热点，语言学家的价值也日益凸现在立法和司法活动中。从立法层面观之，法律语言学家的介入将使法律文本更能体现其应有的文体特征，有助于改变世界各国普遍存在的立法失范化状况；从司法实践层面而言，语言学家的介入，将有助于解决因法规、合同等法律文本的不同诠释而产生的争议，使司法活动更合乎正义性要求。建议我国法学界给予语言学家施展其专业才能的空间，以此肯定语言学家的地位和价值，这将有助于完善我国现有的专家证人制度，从而实现法学界和语言学界的“双赢”。     

美国制定法解释方法向文本主义的回睚

作为美国制定法解释方法的文本主义经历了平白意义规则和新文本主义两个发展阶段。以斯卡利亚为代表的新文本主义对在制定法解释领域长期占据正统地位的意图主义解释方法进行了批判,并对早期平白意义规则进行了扬弃,将文本重新置于制定法解释的中心位置,强调制定法语词的通常、自然与客观意义,并认为文本通常意义的确定无需借助于立法者意图或立法史等文本外材料,而只须根据“普通说英语者标准”,运用词典、语法、解释准则等语言学方面的工具并考虑制定法文本的语境、结构与整体等语义性背景即可确定。     

Can You Talk Like a Lawyer and Still Think Like a Human Being? Mertz's The Language of Law School

The last thirty years in anthropology, as well as in linguistics and in many of the other social sciences, have been characterized by a shift in theoretical focus from structure to practice. In The Language of Law School: Learning to “Think Like a Lawyer” (2007), linguistic anthropologist and law professor Elizabeth Mertz has brought this practice perspective to bear on the extraordinary linguistic and cultural venue that is the first‐year law school classroom. In revealing the linguistic realities of teaching new students to “think like a lawyer,” she raises fascinating questions about the relationship between language and thought, the subtle effects of legal education, and the nature of law itself.     

Merger—the name of the FE game

In the Australian legal environment today the overwhelming importance of laws made by Parliament is obvious, yet many first year law programmes pay insufficient attention to the coordinated teaching of statutory interpretation (SI). This project formed part of a collaborative initiative between an educational developer and the coordinator of legal research methods (LRM) to introduce statutory interpretation into a first year unit of study. Our study used a qualitative research framework – a questionnaire was administered to students at two intervals throughout the first semester. In Week 3, 160 students participated in the questionnaire and at Week 4, a keystone module on statutory interpretation using a building block approach was introduced in LRM. Since the nature of assessment in LRM is largely reflection, this unit lent itself well to investigating the language and literacy challenges of statutory interpretation, in particular, to students monitoring their own progress in this regard. The overall aim of the project was to establish a framework for students to build on their knowledge and understanding of statutory interpretation throughout their undergraduate studies, and in the interests of improved learning and teaching outcomes, for staff to be able to document the changes in student thinking. This paper focuses on the preliminary stage of our investigation into the language and literacy challenges involved in introducing statutory interpretation into a first year unit of study.

I know of only one authority which might justify the suggested method of construction. “When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less.” “The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.” “The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master – that’s all.”

(Alice Through the Looking Glass, c. vi.)

After all this long discussion, the question is whether the words “If a man has” can mean “If a man thinks he has.” I am of opinion that they cannot, and that the case should be decided accordingly.

(Lord Atkin in Liversidge v Anderson [1942] AC 206)     

About the Meaning of the Legal Aspect of Practical Semantics in Estonian Legal Order

This article is aimed at regarding, from the author’s viewpoint, one possible jurisprudential theory for rational understanding of legal order – the structuring theory of law. It is very important that cognition of a legal order should be based on the rules which could be designated as “laws of jurisprudence”. Naturally, this does not mean legislation within the concept of objective law. Rather, these laws can be referred to as certain regularities, ignorance of which would, however, either impossibly or substantially complicate the legal process of decision-making, both in law-making (as the so-called decisional function is contained in law itself¹) or the practical legal process of making decisions (the application of law). In recent years, a conception involving cooperation between linguists and jurists has emerged in the discussion of jurisprudential methodology. This constitutes an interdisciplinary approach to motivation of legal decision-making and involves, on the one hand, “practical semantics” and researchers thereof,² and on the other hand, representatives of the so-called structuring theory of law.³ In specialist literature, the structuring theory of law has also been referred to as the Müller Schoo1.⁴ The role of language and linguistic arguments in the discussion and practice of legal working methods serves as a connective principle in such interdisciplinary approach (co-operation).     

Meaning, Time and the Law: Ex Post and Ex Ante Perspectives

This paper considers the tension between timelessness and timeboundedness in legal interpretation, examining parallels between sacred texts and secular law. It is argued that familiar dualities such as those between statute and judge-made law, law and equity, written and spoken discourse, dictionary meaning versus intended or contextual meaning, can be examined using this timeless/timebounded framework. Two landmark English cases, DPP v Shaw (1961) and R v R (1991) are analyzed as illustrating contrasting aspects of the socio-legal politics of “reasoning backwards”. The related temporal distinction between ex ante and ex post points of view is examined both within legal theory and as a key issue for linguistic and semiotic systems. The argument is made that this distinction is the key to a wide range of methodological and theoretical problems in relating linguistics and semiotics to law.

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法律解释及其基本特征

在法治社会中 ,如果没有法律解释理论 ,仍可能形成新的专制。法律解释应是法官按照法律的规范意旨 ,运用法律思维方式 ,在法律适用过程中 ,对与案件相关的法律和事实的意义所作的阐明。它有三个基本特征 :法律解释是站在法律的立场上 ,对法律的意义所作出的有效力的解释 ,具有合法性特征 :法律解释具有法律的部分与整体的互动、法律与事实的互动的循环性特征 ;法律解释因把一般的法律个别化而具有创造性特征     

A Bilingual,Bicultural Approach to Detachment and Appraisal in the Law: Tracing Impersonality and Interaction in English and Spanish Legal Op-Eds

The present research study carries out a contrastive analysis between two corpora of legal opinion columns as special types of genres, with a view to assess their opposing patterns of impersonality—authorial detachment—and attitude—emotion, judgment, appreciation, taking as a point of departure appraisal theory, or the interpretation of Halliday's Systemic-Functional Linguistics (1994/2004) by the so-called Sydney School. The long-established perspective is that legal genres are highly impersonal; authoritative instruments representing an intentional exercise of elitist and exclusionary practices. However, the hypothesis embedded in the present study is that some texts, such as news editorials and op-eds, constitute hybrid genres where the writer makes use of all kinds of inducement devices to support his/her theses with effectiveness and credibility (Dafouz in J Pragmat 40:95-113, 2008), nonetheless retaining one of the basic traits of monogloss legal discourse: impersonality. However, it is hypothesized that this hybridity is to take place in different degrees, in tune with the influence exerted by legal system that constitutes the background of each corpus. To prove such a point, 40 legal op-eds—roughly, a thirty-five-thousand-word corpus in English and Spanish overall—were scrutinized, having been extracted from the specialized legal sections of two national newspapers of undisputed prestige as opinion-formation media. Through a contrastive study, the purpose of the present work was set to describe, explain and assess how lexicogrammar devices unveil interesting differences between the expression of impersonality and attitude in legal opinion columns as genres in either language, hence reflecting different ways in which the law is envisioned in each of the particular legal systems they belong to.     

Implementing Prior Judicial Decisions as Precedents: The Context of Application and Justification

The paper concerns the conditions and methods of using previous judicial decisions as a kind of precedents in the processes of application of law within the statutory legal order. The use of such decisions, not announced by the legislator, depends on the courts, undertaking such actions on the grounds of similarity of cases or of decisional processes. Such decisions do not become an exclusive validation argument and may create a situation of their potential conflict with legal regulations as well as an inferential supplementation of their content. Dissemination of such activity of the courts leads to the development of precedential practice (relevant to the statutory legal order), though, its actual jurisdictional role depends on proper justification of decisions, within which reference to these decisions should be adaptive (in relation to the elements of the current case), generalizing (forming elements of ratio decidendi) as well as argumentative and discursive (in respect of the way in which the decisional reasoning and arguments expressed in the prior justification are used).

     

德国法学方法论

一般认为,对于一门学术型学科而言,一套方法的存在及由此而形成的方法论至关重要。在德国,法律一直以来都是一门学术型学科。作为被称之为"法学"(字面意思是法律"科学",更确切地说是有关法律的学问)的研究对象,法律以具有一套专门的法学方法论为其特征。在德国大学法学院中,法学方法论是一门非常重要的讲授科目,且围绕这门课程有大量的法学文献。这些文献所讨论的是德国法律人如何(或者更准确地说:应该如何)开展法律工作。德语文献相关讨论中的一个特殊之处在于,在概念上区分"法律解释"与"法的续造"。方法论的讨论涉及制定法解释的各种相关要素、先决条件、不同层级,以及法的续造的合法性等问题。除此之外,还应意识到,对于德国法方法论的讨论是在不同的政治发展历程下展开的。基于此,本文从以下五个一般性话题展开对方法论的讨论:第一,德国、瑞士以及奥地利在方法论上的共性;第二,方法论讨论的规范特征;第三,不同法律领域中所出现的方法论上的差异;第四,法教义学与法学方法论的关系;第五,德国所讨论问题的历史背景。     

法律、民生与民间规则——兼论两岸交流制度中民间规则的作用

法律是社会交往和社会需要的产物,因之,法律也是主体交往中日常生活的公共产品。它不仅作用于人们日常的物质生活,而且也作用于人们的精神生活。更重要的是,法律作为正式制度,还缔造着人们的制度生活。但法律的规定并不是完全自足的,一方面,需要关注作为非正式制度的民间规则的作用,另一方面,当法律规定有所遗漏,或者法律规定对公民的日常生活不能调整、规范时,民间规则对救济法律的不足,就可能会派上用场。甚至即使法律对相关社会关系有所规定,在实践中也免不了法律和民间规范相互交叠地发挥作用。基于这种认识,在两岸有关民生的交流中,应当把民间规则纳入保障两岸民生、促进两岸往来的重要社会因素中。     

Some Problems of Legal Language

Abstract. The author moves from the consideration of law as a set of rules serving as a means of socially regulating human conduct. He focuses on the fact that in order to fulfil its function, the law must be seen as a type of information. In this perspective law is a particular language and therefore gives rise to linguistic problems, linked to the technical character of juristic discourse. The author deals with some of the linguistic and sociological aspects of legal language and attempts to pinpoint some trends of interlingual development.     

物权法定原则

物权法定原则决定了物权法的基本性质与特征,也严格地限制了当事人在创设新型物权、改变既有物权之内容等方面的意思自由。物权法定原则的内涵是指物权的种类、内容、效力以及公示方法由法律规定,原则上不能由法律之外的规范性文件进行规定,也不能允许当事人自由创设物权的种类以及确定物权的内容、效力和公示方法。作者比较了物权法定模式的表述方式和基本功能,并认为我国物权法中物权法定中的“法”应当被主要限定为法律;司法解释应当具有一定的创设物权的功能;判例不能创设物权。当事人关于物权设定的约定违反物权法定原则的法律后果,应当根据不同的情况来确定。     

Writing Workshops for First Year Law: my contribution as an applied linguist

“Law schools should focus more on teaching writing – not some Procrustean monstrosity called ‘legal writing,’ but the ordinary techniques of constructing a sentence and telling a story” writes Roosevelt in his review of Divergent Paths: The Academy and the Judiciary by Posner. The Australian Threshold Learning Outcome expects law graduates to be effective, appropriate and persuasive as communicators when interacting with both legal and non-legal persons. We also know that embedding learning outcomes or graduate attributes throughout a programme encourages progressive learning. Furthermore, the whole of degree curriculum design undertaken from a shared perspective reflects industry and student requirements better than individual subjects can. In the absence of any whole of degree curriculum, the semester-long series of Writing Workshops for First Year Law (WWFYL) was created. Building on the success of past collaboration (Curró and Longo), WWFYL reflect a move away from a solitary, silent teaching culture to open sharing of practice. The widening participation and skills agendas remind us of the need to focus on the integration of academic literacies into law. If law is language, can applied linguistics make a contribution to the literacy needs of students from diverse linguistic backgrounds? As an applied linguist, my objective is to raise awareness of the elements and features of legal writing and demystify the specialised discourse and textual features. In this paper I present my theoretical framework borrowed from socio-constructivist theories, focusing on how students learn specific subject matter in particular contexts: “a teaching and learning process that makes transparent the practices and discourses of the subject area” (D. Warren, “Curriculum Design in a Context of Widening Participation in Higher Education” (2002) 1 Arts and Humanities in Higher Education 85, p. 88). Two snapshots of my classroom discourse demonstrating the practical application of my teaching are presented, as well as evaluation data supporting my approach.     

刑法解释限度的理论构建:从价值优化论回归合法限度论

刑法解释限度,是指刑法文义解释所不能超越的、法律文本(刑法文本)所限定的文义界限和程度,以确保刑法解释对象和解释结论的合法性(限度)。刑法解释限度所欲解决的主要是刑法解释合法性问题,而不解决合理性与合目的性的问题。刑法解释限度的判断标准,应当以法律规范用语的语用学所可能确定的、符合国民预测可能性的语言意义为标准,可以简称为“语用意义的国民预测可能性说”。刑法解释限度的诠释学功能,是指刑法解释限度在诠释学上所具有的限定刑法解释合法性的功能,其特点是有限性和层级性。     

The Constitution of Violence Through the Language of Law: Legal Hermenutics in Second‐Century Roman Egypt

Bryen, Ari Z. 2013. Violence in Roman Egypt: A Study in Legal Interpretation . Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. Pp. 376. $75.00 cloth; $75.00 eBook. This essay examines the linguistic anthropological themes emergent in Violence in Roman Egypt (2013). Viewing law as a discourse, it explores how language is constitutive of law and is the primary modality of acting upon, and enacting the world(s) that it shapes, giving meaning to the lives of people who engage each other in and through it. Violence petitions in second‐century Egypt are a fundamental mode of sense making and problem solving, calling on legal authorities to interpret claims of iniuria, or legal battery, into a language that they understand and remedy. In doing so, law changes the discourse of violence, specifically, and social life, more broadly.     

Comparative Statutory Interpretation in the British Isles

Existing studies of statutory interpretation are often of excellent quality but they have tended either to focus on legal practice to the detriment of comparative jurisprudence, or have examined legal reasoning at a level of abstraction which has made empirical study difficult. The author examines a recent development in this area and considers how it might be used to begin a project to identify any divergences in statutory interpretation among the various legal systems of the United Kingdom.     

Communicating Dissent in Judicial Opinions: A Comparative,Genre-Based Analysis

To date, there has been surprisingly little research on separate opinions in legal linguistics literature. Scarce attention has been paid to the linguistic and communicative aspects of how judges frame their disagreements. This paper serves as one of the early attempts to examine the institution of votum separatum, or separate opinion, from a comparative, cross-language perspective using a linguistic methodology. The evidence indicates a clear similarity in terms of how separate opinions are integrated within the respective macrostructures of the US SC opinions and the Constitutional Tribunal judgments. This study demonstrates how judges tend to employ highly formulaic expressions to signal their disagreement despite the absence of clear guidelines to communicate such stances. The analysis of their frequent phraseology demonstrates that declaring votum separatum and providing its justification are two different acts, not only legally but also linguistically, especially in terms of their formulaicity. The Polish and American justifications differ in the degree to which the frequent phraseology reveals peculiarities of judicial argumentation in addition to the presence of strong evaluative concerns.