| Title |
English of us laws and law textbooks: a contrastive analysis of functional features / |
| Translation of Title |
Anglų kalba JAV teisės aktuose ir teisės vadovėliuose: gretinamoji funkcinių ypatumų analizė. |
| Authors |
Kazlauskaitė, Viktorija |
| Full Text |
|
| Pages |
54 |
| Keywords [eng] |
legal language, lexical bundles, legal acts, stance expressions, discourse organizers, referential expressions, law textbooks, teisinė kalba, leksinės samplaikos, teisės aktai, požiūrio leksinės samplaikos, organizuojančios leksinės samplaikos, referencinės leksinės samplaikos, teisiniai vadovėliai |
| Abstract [eng] |
Legal language is widely used across the world, yet it is the most complex language that only legal discourse is using. Legal language complex features make it an excellent object for research, especially the analysis of the lexical bundles. The subject of this study consists of two corpora: law textbooks and legal acts. The corpora were gathered specifically for this thesis by selecting texts on similar topics. The aim of the study is to determine what functions the lexical bundles found in different corpora perform and to compare whether the language differs between these different corpora. The goals of the thesis are: to collect lexical bundles from two corpora; classify the lexical bundles according to their functions; and compare the results of the two corpora. In addition to these goals, the hypothesis was put forward that despite the difference in genres, the lexical bundles found in both corpora do not differ and they perform the same functions of the text. This thesis follows a quantative research approach. The first part of the study covers the relevant literature on legal language and lexical bundles. The second part of the study describes the methodology used to compile and analyze the corpus, and presents the results of the analysis. The third part presents the discussion and conclusion of this thesis. The research results showed that legal language in legal acts does have more lexical bundles functioning as discourse organizers than in law textbooks. However, the results also showed that referential expressions are dominating in both corpora, which signals that precision is the most important part of both discourses. However, the purpose of each discourse is rather different which is why the numbers of lexical bundles in three categories are distributed differently. The results not only shed light on the nuanced use of lexical bundles but also offer valuable insight for legal professionals, teachers, students, and anyone seeking to navigate the complexities of US legal communication. |
| Dissertation Institution |
Vilniaus universitetas. |
| Type |
Master thesis |
| Language |
English |
| Publication date |
2024 |
