A Functional Analysis Of The Judgments Of American Crimianl Law

The present study provides a functional analysis of the language in the judgments of American criminal law. The purpose is to explore the linguistic realizations of the ideational, interpersonal and textual meanings of the language in the judgments of American criminal law based on a functional approach and consequently to try to shed some light on the teaching of legal English in the classroom. The analytical framework derives from Halliday's systemic-functional grammar (SF0). This thesis is in nature a piece of discourse analysis. Four pieces of research data, one unedited judgment and three abridged judgments of cases, are selected for analysis. The analysis proceeds according to the four major structural elements of judgments, i.e. the facts, issues, arguments and decisions. The linguistic representations or realizationas of these three meanings are analyzed in light of the SFG and jurisprudential justifications are provided for the findings within the mechanism of American criminal law.