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Chapter 6. Interrogative engagement as a pragmatic and textual function in Legal Studies

  • Michele Sala
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Engagement in Professional Genres
This chapter is in the book Engagement in Professional Genres

Abstract

This chapter investigates the use of interrogative sentences in legal studies, a domain where persuasion does not benefit from corpus-based evidence but is an eminently discourse-based construct. Questions are particularly strategic tools to align readers to the writer’s point of view and guide interpretation, since they can be employed to both organize the argumentation and anticipate problematic aspects or doubts with the purpose to neutralize them. Based on a corpus of 90 legal research articles taken from CADIS, this chapter examines questions according to their pragmatic and textual aspect, and assesses their specificity to the legal domain by comparing their frequency and function with a reference corpus of 270 research articles in other academic domains (applied linguistics, economics and medicine).

Abstract

This chapter investigates the use of interrogative sentences in legal studies, a domain where persuasion does not benefit from corpus-based evidence but is an eminently discourse-based construct. Questions are particularly strategic tools to align readers to the writer’s point of view and guide interpretation, since they can be employed to both organize the argumentation and anticipate problematic aspects or doubts with the purpose to neutralize them. Based on a corpus of 90 legal research articles taken from CADIS, this chapter examines questions according to their pragmatic and textual aspect, and assesses their specificity to the legal domain by comparing their frequency and function with a reference corpus of 270 research articles in other academic domains (applied linguistics, economics and medicine).

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Acknowledgements ix
  4. Foreword xi
  5. Chapter 1. Networking engagement in professional practices 1
  6. Section I. Monomodal genres
  7. Chapter 2. Positioning and proximity of reader engagement 29
  8. Chapter 3. Authorial engagement in business emails 47
  9. Chapter 4. Challenging the concept of pure objectivity in British and Spanish hard news reports 67
  10. Chapter 5. Rebuilding trust in the banking sector 87
  11. Chapter 6. Interrogative engagement as a pragmatic and textual function in Legal Studies 101
  12. Chapter 7. Patients engaging their doctors in the doctor-patient relationship 119
  13. Chapter 8. “Let’s have that conversation on next quarter’s call” 137
  14. Section II. Intersemiotic genres
  15. Chapter 9. Multiplying engagement 157
  16. Chapter 10. Researchers’ move from page to screen 179
  17. Chapter 11. Recruitment websites and the socialization of new employees 197
  18. Chapter 12. Verbal and nonverbal engagement devices in business persuasive discourse 217
  19. Chapter 13. Scifotainment 243
  20. Chapter 14. How much do U.S. patents disclose? 259
  21. Chapter 15. Gestural silence 277
  22. Chapter 16. Silence and engagement in the multimodal genre of synchronous videoconferencing lectures 297
  23. Chapter 17. Organizational metadiscourse across lecturing styles 321
  24. Chapter 18. Engagement of readers/customers in the discourse of e-tourism promotional genres 341
  25. Notes on contributors 359
  26. Names Index 365
  27. Subject Index 367
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.301.06sal

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Acknowledgements ix
  4. Foreword xi
  5. Chapter 1. Networking engagement in professional practices 1
  6. Section I. Monomodal genres
  7. Chapter 2. Positioning and proximity of reader engagement 29
  8. Chapter 3. Authorial engagement in business emails 47
  9. Chapter 4. Challenging the concept of pure objectivity in British and Spanish hard news reports 67
  10. Chapter 5. Rebuilding trust in the banking sector 87
  11. Chapter 6. Interrogative engagement as a pragmatic and textual function in Legal Studies 101
  12. Chapter 7. Patients engaging their doctors in the doctor-patient relationship 119
  13. Chapter 8. “Let’s have that conversation on next quarter’s call” 137
  14. Section II. Intersemiotic genres
  15. Chapter 9. Multiplying engagement 157
  16. Chapter 10. Researchers’ move from page to screen 179
  17. Chapter 11. Recruitment websites and the socialization of new employees 197
  18. Chapter 12. Verbal and nonverbal engagement devices in business persuasive discourse 217
  19. Chapter 13. Scifotainment 243
  20. Chapter 14. How much do U.S. patents disclose? 259
  21. Chapter 15. Gestural silence 277
  22. Chapter 16. Silence and engagement in the multimodal genre of synchronous videoconferencing lectures 297
  23. Chapter 17. Organizational metadiscourse across lecturing styles 321
  24. Chapter 18. Engagement of readers/customers in the discourse of e-tourism promotional genres 341
  25. Notes on contributors 359
  26. Names Index 365
  27. Subject Index 367
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