Chapter 10. The representation of citizens and monarchy in Acts of Parliament in 1800 to 2000
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Anu Lehto
Abstract
This chapter considers the representation of citizens and the British monarchy in Acts of Parliament from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in the Corpus of Late Modern English Statutes. The analysis investigates collocates associated with those two social groups and traces their semantic preferences and semantic prosodies. The portrayals of the groups are related to developments in the socio-historical context and legislation. The study suggests that the acts form notably dissimilar representations of the monarchy and citizens. The Crown is generally addressed in a respectful manner. The role of the citizens, by contrast, improves considerably in the data: the nineteenth-century acts focus on the criminal actions of the citizens, while their rights are emphasised in the following century.
Abstract
This chapter considers the representation of citizens and the British monarchy in Acts of Parliament from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in the Corpus of Late Modern English Statutes. The analysis investigates collocates associated with those two social groups and traces their semantic preferences and semantic prosodies. The portrayals of the groups are related to developments in the socio-historical context and legislation. The study suggests that the acts form notably dissimilar representations of the monarchy and citizens. The Crown is generally addressed in a respectful manner. The role of the citizens, by contrast, improves considerably in the data: the nineteenth-century acts focus on the criminal actions of the citizens, while their rights are emphasised in the following century.
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
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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
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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
