politeness,Chinese Style

正Confucius said,"By nature we converge;by custom,we diverge."Simply put,people from all cultures are endowed with the same hardware;it’s our cultural programming that makes us different.Language use captures and shows differences in how we express     

Pragmatic Maxims and Presumptions in Legal Interpretation

The fields of linguistic pragmatics and legal interpretation are deeply interrelated. The purpose of this paper is to show how pragmatics and the developments in argumentation theory can contribute to the debate on legal interpretation. The relation between the pragmatic maxims and the presumptions underlying the legal canons are brought to light, unveiling the principles that underlie the types of argument usually used to justify a construction. The Gricean maxims and the arguments of legal interpretation are regarded as presumptions subject to default used to justify an interpretation. This approach can allow one to trace the different legal interpretive arguments back to their basic underlying presumptions, so that they can be compared, ordered, and assessed according to their defeasibility conditions. This approach allows one to understand the difference between various types of interpretive canons, and their strength in justifying an interpretation.     

The Middle Kingdom, Media and Mobility

Today’s modern world has increased the speed in the way we as individuals and as cultural groups,think,feel,and respond to our world and the people in it with us.This is because of enormous changes in media and migration.Digital media(Internet,cell phones)and migratory freedoms offer savvy youth in particular more access to all kinds of resources,both tangible and intangible.The tangible are easily guessed:e.g.,things like consumer goods and vacation     

Spirits And Exams

正"Chinese mythology has many gods and spirits.One of the most enduring and popular of these gods is called Ho-Po or Ho-Shen,the Spirit of the River.Chinese ancients perceived him as a greedy god,because he often took a fancy to mortal men’s most beautiful     

Interpretation,Argumentation, and the Determinacy of Law

This article models legal interpretation through argumentation and provides a logical analysis of interpretive arguments, their conflicts, and the resulting indeterminacies. Interpretive arguments are modelled as defeasible inferences, which can be challenged and defeated by counterarguments and be reinstated through further arguments. It is shown what claims are possibly (defensibly) or necessarily (justifiably) supported by the arguments constructible from a given interpretive basis, i.e., a set of interpretive canons coupled with reasons for their application. It is finally established under what conditions such arguments provide single outcomes or rather support alternative interpretive conclusions, thus leading to propositions of law whose truth-value is undetermined.