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Recontextualization of concepts in European legal discourse

  • Anne Lise Kjær
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Dialogue and Rhetoric
This chapter is in the book Dialogue and Rhetoric

Abstract

This paper falls within the research field of legal linguistics. The subject is a question of great concern in current comparative legal research: Is it possible to develop a common legal language in the European Union, given the cultural and linguistic plurality of Europe? I argue that it is. What it requires is a common legal discourse and the development of a common European interpretive community. A key mechanism of this development is the recontextualization of legal concepts , i.e. the circulation of concepts among and across the national and international interpretive communities of the European Union accompanied by the discursive interactions of the legal actors at national and supranational levels of EU law. The contribution provides one element in a wider discourse analytical framework for the study of the paradox of ‘unity in diversity’ inherent in the ambition of developing a common legal language in Europe.

Abstract

This paper falls within the research field of legal linguistics. The subject is a question of great concern in current comparative legal research: Is it possible to develop a common legal language in the European Union, given the cultural and linguistic plurality of Europe? I argue that it is. What it requires is a common legal discourse and the development of a common European interpretive community. A key mechanism of this development is the recontextualization of legal concepts , i.e. the circulation of concepts among and across the national and international interpretive communities of the European Union accompanied by the discursive interactions of the legal actors at national and supranational levels of EU law. The contribution provides one element in a wider discourse analytical framework for the study of the paradox of ‘unity in diversity’ inherent in the ambition of developing a common legal language in Europe.

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Introduction: Rhetoric or how to integrate the different voices ix
  4. Part I. Rhetorical Paradigms
  5. Rhetoric in the Mixed Game 3
  6. The selection of agency as a rhetorical device: Opening up the scene of dialogue through ventriloquism 23
  7. Dialogic rhetoric, coauthorship, and moments of meeting 39
  8. The rhetoric of 'dialogue' in metadiscourse: Possibility/impossibility arguments and critical events 55
  9. Rhetoric and ethic of dialog: Can conditions of performance serve as excluding criteria? 69
  10. Common ground and (re)defanging the antagonistic: A paradigm for argumentation as shared inquiry and responsibility 83
  11. What is the role of arguments? Fundamental human rights in the age of spin 95
  12. Logical and rhetorical rules of debate 119
  13. Rhetoric in a dialectical framework: Fallacies as derailments of strategic manoeuvring 133
  14. Part II. Rhetoric in the Mixed Game: Communicative means, cultural values, and institutional games
  15. Strategic use of Korean honorifics: Functions of 'partner-deference sangdae-nopim' 155
  16. Irony as a rhetorical device in dialogic interaction 171
  17. Political rhetoric in visual images 185
  18. Sociological concepts and their impact on rhetoric: Japanese language concepts 195
  19. The rhetorical component of dialogic communication in Banks' annual reports 209
  20. Attention-influencing as a rhetorical strategy in German and Turkish Parliamentary debates 221
  21. Diatexts of media dilemmas: The rhetorical construction of euthanasia 235
  22. Recontextualization of concepts in European legal discourse 251
  23. A court judgment as dialogue 267
  24. Part III. Round table discussion: Concepts of rhetoric, dialogue and argumentation
  25. Round table discussion 285
  26. General Index 309
  27. List of Contributors 315
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