Abstract
Focusing on the legal dispute over the crime of whoring with an underage girl, the present study explores why many Chinese appeal to abolish the legal statute on the crime of whoring with an underage girl from a sociosemiotic perspective. The authors argue that the legislation of this legal statute neglects that the Chinese social system, including social customs and conventions, could also influence Chinese social semiotic systems. This legal dispute originates from the lack of an overview of the Chinese social, legal, and semiotic systems. By situating the dispute in the Chinese historical and cultural settings, the authors reveal why it is unreasonable to promulgate this legal statute. By situating the dispute in the Chinese and world legal settings, the authors further reveal the causal factors of this dispute: (1) labeling underage schoolgirls as prostitutes; (2) classifying statutory rape as crimes in prostitution; (3) the potential legal contradiction between the crime of rape and the crime of whoring with underage girl; (4) aiming to punish the perpetrator more severely and safeguard the underage girl more effectively, but giving rise to more similar crimes and doing more psychological harm to the underage girl by using language violence in reality. Therefore, the authors suggest that it be necessary to amend or modify, and to systematize some relevant legal provisions on sex offences against minors timely according to the social, linguistic, and legal realities.
Funding statement: Funding: The work described in this paper was substantially supported by a grant from the National Social Science Fund of China (Project No.: 12xzx013).
Acknowledgements
We are grateful to Le Cheng, Professor and Director of the Center for Legal Discourse and Translation, Zhejiang University, for his insightful comments on the draft of this paper and his kind help with some invaluable resources.
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©2016 by De Gruyter Mouton
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Introduction: Hidden meanings in legal discourse
- Comparing the incomparable and legal discourse
- Two assumptions in legal discourse: To answer for self and to tell the truth
- Le sens caché: Refoulement et impensé dans le discours de la loi sémiotique des significations cachées du discours juridique
- Multiple historical and social layers of interpretation of marital rape in England
- Revisiting judgment translation in Hong Kong
- Exemption and exegesis: Judicial interpretation of exemption clauses in England, Australia, and India
- Identifying the meanings hidden in legal texts: The three conditions of relevance theory and their sufficiency
- The consequences and effects of language transformations in legal discourse
- Exploring identities in police interrogations
- Rights, responsibilities, and resistance: Legal discourse and intervention legislation in the Northern Territory in Australia
- An exploration of the semantic domain of legal language
- The hidden meanings in the case law of the European Court for Human Rights
- Crimes of the sign: Politics and performatives in the Treason Trials of 1794
- Showing what “marriage” is: Law’s civilizing sign
- A sociosemiotic approach to the legal dispute over the crime of whoring with an underage girl in China
- Uncovering hidden meanings in legal discourse on the elderly: A semioethical perspective
- Deontic meaning making in legislative discourse
- Hidden meanings of the words “religion” and “religious” in legal discourse
- Hidden cultures in law: Metaphor and translation in legal discourse
- Negotiating language status in multilingual jurisdictions: Rhetoric and reality
- Burying attitudes in words: Linguistic realization of the shift of judges’ court conciliation style
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Introduction: Hidden meanings in legal discourse
- Comparing the incomparable and legal discourse
- Two assumptions in legal discourse: To answer for self and to tell the truth
- Le sens caché: Refoulement et impensé dans le discours de la loi sémiotique des significations cachées du discours juridique
- Multiple historical and social layers of interpretation of marital rape in England
- Revisiting judgment translation in Hong Kong
- Exemption and exegesis: Judicial interpretation of exemption clauses in England, Australia, and India
- Identifying the meanings hidden in legal texts: The three conditions of relevance theory and their sufficiency
- The consequences and effects of language transformations in legal discourse
- Exploring identities in police interrogations
- Rights, responsibilities, and resistance: Legal discourse and intervention legislation in the Northern Territory in Australia
- An exploration of the semantic domain of legal language
- The hidden meanings in the case law of the European Court for Human Rights
- Crimes of the sign: Politics and performatives in the Treason Trials of 1794
- Showing what “marriage” is: Law’s civilizing sign
- A sociosemiotic approach to the legal dispute over the crime of whoring with an underage girl in China
- Uncovering hidden meanings in legal discourse on the elderly: A semioethical perspective
- Deontic meaning making in legislative discourse
- Hidden meanings of the words “religion” and “religious” in legal discourse
- Hidden cultures in law: Metaphor and translation in legal discourse
- Negotiating language status in multilingual jurisdictions: Rhetoric and reality
- Burying attitudes in words: Linguistic realization of the shift of judges’ court conciliation style