Chapter 2. English and Italian land contracts
-
Giuliana Diani
Abstract
Legal language has attracted increasing scholarly interest over the last three decades, and the importance of this field is constantly growing. The present chapter examines the textual and linguistic features of a type of legal text, contracts, and in particular land contracts, from a cross-linguistic perspective (English and Italian). Detailed consideration of the form and language of land contracts shows that they exhibit remarkable similarities in the two languages examined, but also differences in the handling of major linguistic strategies such as relativization, nominalization, binomials, or the resources employed to express deontic modality.
Abstract
Legal language has attracted increasing scholarly interest over the last three decades, and the importance of this field is constantly growing. The present chapter examines the textual and linguistic features of a type of legal text, contracts, and in particular land contracts, from a cross-linguistic perspective (English and Italian). Detailed consideration of the form and language of land contracts shows that they exhibit remarkable similarities in the two languages examined, but also differences in the handling of major linguistic strategies such as relativization, nominalization, binomials, or the resources employed to express deontic modality.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Acknowledgements vii
- Chapter 1. “Why may not that be the skull of a lawyer?” English legal discourse past and present 1
-
Part I. Cross-genre and cross-linguistic variation
- Chapter 2. English and Italian land contracts 25
- Chapter 3. Conditionals in spoken courtroom and parliamentary discourse in English, French, and Spanish 51
- Chapter 4. Part-of-speech patterns in legal genres 79
- Chapter 5. A comparison of lexical bundles in spoken courtroom language across time, registers, and varieties 105
- Chapter 6. “It is not just a fact that the law requires this, but it is a reasonable fact” 123
-
Part II. Diachronic variation
- Chapter 7. Are law reports an ‘agile’ or an ‘uptight’ register? 149
- Chapter 8. Interpersonality in legal written discourse 171
- Chapter 9. The evolution of a legal genre 201
- Chapter 10. The representation of citizens and monarchy in Acts of Parliament in 1800 to 2000 235
- Chapter 11. Drinking and crime 261
- Name index 287
- Subject index 291
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Acknowledgements vii
- Chapter 1. “Why may not that be the skull of a lawyer?” English legal discourse past and present 1
-
Part I. Cross-genre and cross-linguistic variation
- Chapter 2. English and Italian land contracts 25
- Chapter 3. Conditionals in spoken courtroom and parliamentary discourse in English, French, and Spanish 51
- Chapter 4. Part-of-speech patterns in legal genres 79
- Chapter 5. A comparison of lexical bundles in spoken courtroom language across time, registers, and varieties 105
- Chapter 6. “It is not just a fact that the law requires this, but it is a reasonable fact” 123
-
Part II. Diachronic variation
- Chapter 7. Are law reports an ‘agile’ or an ‘uptight’ register? 149
- Chapter 8. Interpersonality in legal written discourse 171
- Chapter 9. The evolution of a legal genre 201
- Chapter 10. The representation of citizens and monarchy in Acts of Parliament in 1800 to 2000 235
- Chapter 11. Drinking and crime 261
- Name index 287
- Subject index 291
