Legal Speech Acts

The object of inquiry of the present paper is the legal speech acts as realized in English legal discourses. Legal speech acts are different from those used in everyday discourses in that they carry legal force. Their primary pragmatic function is to regulate the social behavior of citizens and the relationship between them. This regulative function can be further divided into two sub-functions: to confer rights and to impose obligations. Based upon previous studies on speech acts and legal speech acts by Austin (1962), Searle (1975), and Trosborg (1995), legal speech acts are classified into three types: explicit, conventionalized and implicit. Following this analytical framework, we conducted an investigation into the explicit and conventionalized legal speech acts as used in English legislative discourses in terms of their functions, realization, distribution and frequency. The general pragmatic principles of forensic communication and the features of legal discourses are also discussed in this paper.Directed by Professor Mao Junchun...