Interpersonal Meanings In Descriptive Legal Texts

The present thesis offers a contrastive study on the realization means of the interpersonal meanings in the descriptive legal texts written for two different groups of readers, nonprofessional and legal specialist readers.The purpose of this study is to find out the patterns of interpersonal management in the descriptive legal texts, the patterns of establishing and maintaining relations with two different groups of readers and the ways of explaining the same legal subject matters to two different groups of readers.This study is based on the theoretical framework drawn from the previous study results with reference to the interpersonal meanings and the realization means of interpersonal meanings in the area of functional grammar. In addition, this contrastive study on the realization means of the interpersonal meanings in the general public-oriented and the professional-oriented descriptive legal texts includes the study on the evaluation in these legal texts, as well as the study on the speech roles and projected roles in these legal texts.The research methodology applied in the present thesis is the methodology of qualitative research. Moreover, the data collected for this contrastive analysis, the two kinds of selected descriptive legal texts are written both in English and Chinese.The study results may provide some informative and systematic suggestions for the legal specialists who will be engaged in the writing or translating of the descriptive legal texts for two different groups of readers.