An investigation of the lexico-grammatical profile of English legal- lay language
Autor(a) principal: | |
---|---|
Data de Publicação: | 2022 |
Tipo de documento: | Artigo |
Idioma: | eng |
Título da fonte: | Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos) |
Texto Completo: | https://ojs.letras.up.pt/index.php/LLLD/article/view/12830 |
Resumo: | The article presents a study on the lexico-grammar of the genre of English legal-lay language (Tiersma 1999), using the English subcorpus of the CorIELLS corpus (Busso forthcoming). The study explores four grammatical constructions (in Goldberg 2006’s Construction Grammar sense): nominalisations heading prepositional phrase attachments, modal verb constructions, participial reduced relative constructions, and passive constructions. Specifically, we use collostructional analysis (Stefanowitsch 2013), followed by a vocabulary analysis using English core vocabulary as a reference (Brezina and Gablasova 2015), and a comparative frequency analysis with corpora of legal language and generaldomain written prose. Results of this first part of the study foreground how legallay language is quantitatively different from both neighbouring genres, suggesting that it might be considered a “blended” genre. We further explore the data in terms of accessibility for speakers, using readability metrics and a survey on English participants. Both methods show that legal-lay language is at an intermediate level of complexity between legal jargon and general-domain prose; however, we further note that readability metrics generally underestimate speakers’ ability to comprehend legal-lay language. |
id |
RCAP_4a39d217098ccd8b95b2452fd552433f |
---|---|
oai_identifier_str |
oai:ojs.letras.up.pt/ojs:article/12830 |
network_acronym_str |
RCAP |
network_name_str |
Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos) |
repository_id_str |
7160 |
spelling |
An investigation of the lexico-grammatical profile of English legal- lay languageArticlesThe article presents a study on the lexico-grammar of the genre of English legal-lay language (Tiersma 1999), using the English subcorpus of the CorIELLS corpus (Busso forthcoming). The study explores four grammatical constructions (in Goldberg 2006’s Construction Grammar sense): nominalisations heading prepositional phrase attachments, modal verb constructions, participial reduced relative constructions, and passive constructions. Specifically, we use collostructional analysis (Stefanowitsch 2013), followed by a vocabulary analysis using English core vocabulary as a reference (Brezina and Gablasova 2015), and a comparative frequency analysis with corpora of legal language and generaldomain written prose. Results of this first part of the study foreground how legallay language is quantitatively different from both neighbouring genres, suggesting that it might be considered a “blended” genre. We further explore the data in terms of accessibility for speakers, using readability metrics and a survey on English participants. Both methods show that legal-lay language is at an intermediate level of complexity between legal jargon and general-domain prose; however, we further note that readability metrics generally underestimate speakers’ ability to comprehend legal-lay language.Faculdade de Letras da Universidade do Porto2022-11-22info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersioninfo:eu-repo/semantics/articlehttps://ojs.letras.up.pt/index.php/LLLD/article/view/12830eng2183-3745Busso, Luciainfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccessreponame:Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)instname:Agência para a Sociedade do Conhecimento (UMIC) - FCT - Sociedade da Informaçãoinstacron:RCAAP2023-01-13T03:48:08Zoai:ojs.letras.up.pt/ojs:article/12830Portal AgregadorONGhttps://www.rcaap.pt/oai/openaireopendoar:71602024-03-19T16:31:26.892581Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos) - Agência para a Sociedade do Conhecimento (UMIC) - FCT - Sociedade da Informaçãofalse |
dc.title.none.fl_str_mv |
An investigation of the lexico-grammatical profile of English legal- lay language |
title |
An investigation of the lexico-grammatical profile of English legal- lay language |
spellingShingle |
An investigation of the lexico-grammatical profile of English legal- lay language Busso, Lucia Articles |
title_short |
An investigation of the lexico-grammatical profile of English legal- lay language |
title_full |
An investigation of the lexico-grammatical profile of English legal- lay language |
title_fullStr |
An investigation of the lexico-grammatical profile of English legal- lay language |
title_full_unstemmed |
An investigation of the lexico-grammatical profile of English legal- lay language |
title_sort |
An investigation of the lexico-grammatical profile of English legal- lay language |
author |
Busso, Lucia |
author_facet |
Busso, Lucia |
author_role |
author |
dc.contributor.author.fl_str_mv |
Busso, Lucia |
dc.subject.por.fl_str_mv |
Articles |
topic |
Articles |
description |
The article presents a study on the lexico-grammar of the genre of English legal-lay language (Tiersma 1999), using the English subcorpus of the CorIELLS corpus (Busso forthcoming). The study explores four grammatical constructions (in Goldberg 2006’s Construction Grammar sense): nominalisations heading prepositional phrase attachments, modal verb constructions, participial reduced relative constructions, and passive constructions. Specifically, we use collostructional analysis (Stefanowitsch 2013), followed by a vocabulary analysis using English core vocabulary as a reference (Brezina and Gablasova 2015), and a comparative frequency analysis with corpora of legal language and generaldomain written prose. Results of this first part of the study foreground how legallay language is quantitatively different from both neighbouring genres, suggesting that it might be considered a “blended” genre. We further explore the data in terms of accessibility for speakers, using readability metrics and a survey on English participants. Both methods show that legal-lay language is at an intermediate level of complexity between legal jargon and general-domain prose; however, we further note that readability metrics generally underestimate speakers’ ability to comprehend legal-lay language. |
publishDate |
2022 |
dc.date.none.fl_str_mv |
2022-11-22 |
dc.type.status.fl_str_mv |
info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion |
dc.type.driver.fl_str_mv |
info:eu-repo/semantics/article |
format |
article |
status_str |
publishedVersion |
dc.identifier.uri.fl_str_mv |
https://ojs.letras.up.pt/index.php/LLLD/article/view/12830 |
url |
https://ojs.letras.up.pt/index.php/LLLD/article/view/12830 |
dc.language.iso.fl_str_mv |
eng |
language |
eng |
dc.relation.none.fl_str_mv |
2183-3745 |
dc.rights.driver.fl_str_mv |
info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
eu_rights_str_mv |
openAccess |
dc.publisher.none.fl_str_mv |
Faculdade de Letras da Universidade do Porto |
publisher.none.fl_str_mv |
Faculdade de Letras da Universidade do Porto |
dc.source.none.fl_str_mv |
reponame:Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos) instname:Agência para a Sociedade do Conhecimento (UMIC) - FCT - Sociedade da Informação instacron:RCAAP |
instname_str |
Agência para a Sociedade do Conhecimento (UMIC) - FCT - Sociedade da Informação |
instacron_str |
RCAAP |
institution |
RCAAP |
reponame_str |
Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos) |
collection |
Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos) |
repository.name.fl_str_mv |
Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos) - Agência para a Sociedade do Conhecimento (UMIC) - FCT - Sociedade da Informação |
repository.mail.fl_str_mv |
|
_version_ |
1799130769241669632 |