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Customer Services Department. Macmillan Distribution Ltd
Houndmills. Basingstoke. Hampshire. RG21 2XS. England.
Legal Discourse
Studies in Linguistics, Rhetoric and
Legal Analysis
Peter Goodrich
Lecturer in Law
University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne
M
MACMILLAN
© Peter Goodrich 1987
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission
of this publication may be made without written permission.
No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied
or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance
with the provisions ofthe Copyright Act 1956 (as amended),
or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying
issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 33-4 Alfred Place,
London WClE 7DP.
Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to
this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and
civil claims for damages.
First published 1987
Reprinted 1990
Published by
THE MACMILLAN PRESS LTD
Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 2XS
and London
Companies and representatives
throughout the world
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Goodrich, Peter
Legal discourse: studies in linguistics, rhetoric and legal analysis.-(Language,
discourse, society series)
1. Law-Language 2. Semantics (Law)
I. Title II. Series
340'.14 K213
ISBN 978-0-333-51584-6 ISBN 978-1-349-11283-8 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-11283-8
Contents
Table of Cases vii
Preface ix
1 Introduction: Law and Language 1
PART I LINGUISTICS AND LEGAL THEORY 9
2 The Science of Language 11
2.1 Philology, Linguistics, Philosophy of Language 11
2.2 Structural Linguistics: Ferdinand de Saussure 17
3 The Language of Legal Faith 32
3.1 The Context of Legal Science 32
3.2 On Purity and Moral Danger: Hans Kelsen and Legal
Formalism 35
3.3 Adventures of Legal Meaning: Herbert Hart and Legal
Subjectivism 44
4 The Role of Linguistics in Legal Analysis 63
4.1 The Dominant Paradigm: Linguistics, Legal Science, Legal
Semiotics 65
4.1.1 Law as Code 65
4.1.2 Legal Meaning Revisited 70
4.2 The Need for an Alternative Approach 76
PARTII LEGAL DISCOURSE 83
5 Rhetoric as Jurisprudence: An Introduction to the Politics
of Legal Language 85
Introduction 85
5.1 Rhetoric is Republican 89
5.1.1 Persuasion 91
5.1.2 Audience 93
5.1.3 Public Speech 96
v
VI Contents
5.2 Rhetoric as Method 98
5.2.1 The Necessary and the Probable 98
5.2.2 Figure and Metaphor 103
5.2.3 Rationalism and, and against, Rhetoric 107
5.3 The New Rhetoric and its Application to Law 111
5.3.1 A Logic of Values 112
5.3.2 Techniques of Argument 114
5.3.3 Legal Argument 117
5.4 Conclusion 121
6 Law as Social Discourse I: A Topology of Discourse 125
6.1 Introduction 125
6.1.1 Linguistics, Ethics and Method 127
6.2 Discourse Analysis 132
6.2.1 Discourse 132
6.2.2 Discursive Processes 136
6.2.3 Discursive Formations 143
(a) Institutionalisation 144
(b) Intradiscourse 146
(c) Interdiscourse 149
6.2.4 Discourse and Ideology 151
7 Law as Social Discourse II: Legal Discourse 158
7.1 Legal Discourse 158
7.1.1 The Underdevelopment of a Discipline 158
7.1.2 Legal Intradiscourse 169
(a) Institutionalisation 170
(b) Lexicon and syntax 174
7.1.3 Legal Interdiscourse 183
(a) Sovereign and subject 184
(b) Semantic appropriation 192
7.2 Conclusion 203
8 Conclusion: Legal Theory and Legal Practice 205
8.1 The Ideological Context 208
8.2 The Context of Theory 210
Notes and References 213
Bibliography 247
Index 259
Table of Cases
Allen v. Flood [1898] AC 1, 244
Bromley London Borough Council v. Greater London Council
[1982] 1 AER 129,193-203
Davis v. Johnson [1979] AC264, 245
Glinski v. McIver [1962] AC 726,244
Guardian Newspapers Ltd. v. Secretary of State for Defence
[1984] 3 AER 601 ,244
Home Office v. Harman [1982] 1 AER532,89-90
Horrocks v. Lowe [1975] AC 135, 244
Lynch v. DPP [1975] AC 653,244
National Westminster Bank PLC v. Morgan [1985]
2 WLR 588, 244
Photo Productions Ltd v. Securicor Transport Ltd. [1980]
1 AER 556, 180-1
Prescott v. Birmingham Corporation [1954] 3 AER 698, 195
Regina v. Finney [1874] 12 Cox Reports 625, 221
Roberts v. Hopwood [1925] AC578, 195,200
Rookes v. Barnard [1964] 1 AER400, 180
Secretary of State for Education and Science v. Metropolitan
Borough of Tameside [1976] 3AER665, 200
Universe Tankships of Monrovia v. International Transport
Federation [1982] 2 WLR 803,244
Viscountess Rhondda's Claim [1922] 2 AC 389,59-60
Williams v. Home Office (no.2) [1981] 1 AER 400, 89
vii
Preface
The principal substantive aim of this study is that of providing a critical
account of the relationship of law to language. While previous studies
within the philosophy of law have, on occasion, examined the pre
suppositions of legal analysis and legal practice in the terminology of
the philosphy of language, law and language have in general been
treated as discrete phenomena - the conjunction 'and' has marked a
constant separation of distinctive areas of expertise. Utilising the
linguistic methodologies developed within socio-linguistics, discourse
analysis and critical semiotics, the specific purpose of this study has
been to develop the theoretical basis for an interdisciplinary approach
to law and legal texts as language or as linguistic practice. It has been
argued throughout this work that the language of the law is a promin
ent indicator of the social and historical genesis and motivation of the
legal text as instrument of social regulation and discipline. Legal
discourse, like any other of the traditional rhetorical genres or lang
uage varieties, is an historically and rhetorically organised product. It
is thus proposed that a critical linguistic methodology can read within
the structure of legal discourse the socio-historical and political affini
ties and conflicts that led to the emergence of the myth of law as a
unitary language and as a discrete scientific discipline. If the present
study has been in any measure successful, it will have contributed to
the deconstruction of that myth and to its displacement by a more
adequate and critical concept of legal discourse as a language of power,
as the pursuit of control over meaning and as instrument and expres
sion of domination.
I would like to take this opportunity to record my thanks to at least
some of the numerous persons who have aided or encouraged me
during the various stages of researching and writing this book. To Tony
Richardson, Peter Young and Megan Ellis for guidance and stimula
tion at an early stage of a very lengthy project. To Zenon Bankowski
for his distinctive and tenacious approach to commentary on the
various drafts of this work. For help with sources and for unstinting
ix
x
Preface
generosity with their time during the later stages of this research, I am
especially indebted to John Corner, Bernard Jackson, Neil Mac
Cormick and Kay Richardson. Finally, though by no means least, my
thanks to Justin Goodrich for invaluable lessons in the meaning of
reflective equilibrium and for simultaneous induction into the ways of
word processing.
