Legal discourse in transition: technology, methodology, and sociology

Le Cheng; Jiamin Pei

doi:10.1515/ijld-2025-2001

Article

Legal discourse in transition: technology, methodology, and sociology

Le Cheng
Le Cheng is Chair Professor of Law, and Professor of Cyber Studies at Zhejiang University. He serves as the Executive Vice Dean of Zhejiang University’s Academy of International Strategy and Law, Acting Head of International Institute of Cyberspace Governance, Editor-in-Chief of International Journal of Legal Discourse, Editor-in-Chief of International Journal of Digital Law and Governance, Co-Editor of Comparative Legilinguistics (International Journal for Legal Communication), Associate Editor of Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, former Co-Editor of Social Semiotics, and editorial member of Semiotica, Pragmatics and Society, and International Journal for the Semiotics of Law. As a highly-cited scholar, he has published widely in the areas of international law, digital law and governance, cyber law, semiotics, discourse studies, terminology, and legal discourse.
and Jiamin Pei
Jiamin Pei is a research professor at Zhejiang Gongshang University’s School of Foreign Languages. She has published widely in the fields of corpus linguistics, legal discourse, media discourse, and cyber studies in refereed journals such as Social Semiotics, Discourse and Communication, and Terminology.

Published/Copyright: June 2, 2025

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From the journal International Journal of Legal Discourse Volume 10 Issue 1

Abstract

This Special Issue collects eight papers that draw on theories and methods from law, discourse analysis, digital studies, and sociology to inquire into the legal discourse in transition, more specifically, the dynamic and evolving nature of legal discourse as it adapts to the multifaceted challenges of the modern, interconnected world. Notably, this collection captures law as a contested presence where technology, tools, and social demands collide. It draws on a wide array of discourses such as the Chinese criminal laws, AI-related laws in European Union and China, Chinese court judgments, online public opinion on social media Weibo, literary novels, etc. Three important aspects of legal discourse are touched upon: quantitative approaches to legal discourse, legal discourse in the digital age, and law as a site of social contestation. Methodologically, this collection covers both qualitative (e.g., content analysis) and quantitative approaches (e.g., corpus linguistics and topic modeling) to examine the use of linguistic and discursive patterns in different types of discourses. By conceptualizing legal discourse as an interdisciplinary field co-constructed by linguists, technologists, and lawmakers, this collection hopes to offer important theoretical, methodological, and empirical insights for further research at the intersection of law, linguistics, digital studies, and critical theory.

Keywords: legal discourse; methodology; digital transformation; social contestation

Corresponding author: Jiamin Pei, School of Foreign Languages, Zhejiang Gongshang University, Hangzhou, China, E-mail: peijm@zju.edu.cn

About the authors

Le Cheng

Le Cheng is Chair Professor of Law, and Professor of Cyber Studies at Zhejiang University. He serves as the Executive Vice Dean of Zhejiang University’s Academy of International Strategy and Law, Acting Head of International Institute of Cyberspace Governance, Editor-in-Chief of International Journal of Legal Discourse, Editor-in-Chief of International Journal of Digital Law and Governance, Co-Editor of Comparative Legilinguistics (International Journal for Legal Communication), Associate Editor of Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, former Co-Editor of Social Semiotics, and editorial member of Semiotica, Pragmatics and Society, and International Journal for the Semiotics of Law. As a highly-cited scholar, he has published widely in the areas of international law, digital law and governance, cyber law, semiotics, discourse studies, terminology, and legal discourse.

Jiamin Pei

Jiamin Pei is a research professor at Zhejiang Gongshang University’s School of Foreign Languages. She has published widely in the fields of corpus linguistics, legal discourse, media discourse, and cyber studies in refereed journals such as Social Semiotics, Discourse and Communication, and Terminology.

Research funding: This work was supported by the National Social Science Foundation of China (Grant 23FYYB032); and Zhejiang Gongshang University 2024 Annual Project on Curriculum Thought and Politics Construction (Grant 1070XJ6224118).

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Received: 2024-12-10

Accepted: 2025-03-20

Published Online: 2025-06-02

Published in Print: 2025-06-26

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Articles in the same Issue

https://doi.org/10.1515/ijld-2025-2001

Keywords for this article

legal discourse; methodology; digital transformation; social contestation