28.2818, Books: The Pragmatic Turn in Law: Giltrow, Stein (eds.)

Tue Jun 27 15:05:38 UTC 2017

LINGUIST List: Vol-28-2818. Tue Jun 27 2017. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 28.2818, Books: The Pragmatic Turn in Law: Giltrow, Stein (eds.)

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Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2017 11:05:25
From: Pablo Dominguez Andersen [pablo.dominguez at degruyter.com]
Subject: The Pragmatic Turn in Law: Giltrow, Stein (eds.)

Title: The Pragmatic Turn in Law 
Subtitle: Inference and Interpretation in Legal Discourse 
Series Title: Mouton Series in Pragmatics [MSP]  

Publication Year: 2017 
Publisher: De Gruyter Mouton
	   http://www.degruyter.com/mouton

Book URL: https://www.degruyter.com/view/product/475784?format=G 

Editor: Janet Giltrow
Editor: Dieter Stein

Hardback: ISBN:  9781501513268 Pages: 373 Price: U.S. $ 114.99

Abstract:

In legal interpretation, where does meaning come from? Law is made from
language, yet law, unlike other language-related disciplines, has not so far
experienced its "pragmatic turn" towards inference and the construction of
meaning. This book investigates to what extent a pragmatically based view of l
linguistic and legal interpretation can lead to new theoretical views for law
and, in addition, to practical consequences in legal decision-making.

With its traditional emphasis on 'the letter of the law' and the immutable
stability of a text as legal foundation, law has been slow to take the
pragmatic perspective: namely, the language-user's experience and activity in
making meaning. More accustomed to literal than to pragmatic notions of
meaning, that is, in the text rather than constructed by speakers and hearers
- the disciplines of law may be culturally resistant to the pragmatic turn. By
bringing together the different but complementary perspectives of
pragmaticians and lawyers, this book addresses the issue of to what extent
legal meaning can be productively analysed as deriving from resources beyond
the text, beyond the letter of the law.

This collection re-visits the feasibility of the notion of literal meaning for
legal interpretation and, at the same time, the feasibility of pragmatic
meaning for law. Can explications of pragmatic meaning support court actions
in the same way concepts of literal meaning have traditionally supported
statutory interpretations and court judgements? What are the consequences of a
user-based view of language for the law, in both its practices of
interpretation and its definition of itself as a field? Readers will find in
this collection means of approaching such questions, and promising routes for
inquiry into the genre- and field-specific characteristics of inference in
law.

In many respects, the problem of literal vs. pragmatic meaning confined to the
text vs. reaching beyond it will appear to parallel the dichotomy in law
between textualism and intentionalism. There are indeed illuminating
connections between the pair of linguistic terms and the more publicly
controversial legal ones. But the parallel is not exact, and the linguistic
dichotomy is in any case anterior to the legal one. Even as
linguistic-pragmatic investigation may serve legal domains, the legal
questions themselves point back to central conditions of all linguistic
meaning.

Linguistic Field(s): Forensic Linguistics
                     Pragmatics

Written In: English  (eng)

See this book announcement on our website: 
http://linguistlist.org/pubs/books/get-book.cfm?BookID=117493

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