Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-hc48f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-24T13:45:24.922Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Towards a semiotic theory of style in law: a Peircean approach

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 September 2019

Bettina Bor  and
Miklós Könczöl
Bettina Bor
Affiliation:
Doctoral student, Department of Legal Philosophy, Pázmány Péter Catholic University, Budapest
Miklós Könczöl*
Affiliation:
Research fellow, Institute for Legal Studies, HAS Centre for Social Sciences, Budapest
*
*Corresponding author. E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper discusses the promises and limits of a Peircean semiotic approach to the concept of style in law. It does so in two steps: first (1) by identifying the place of style within the structure of law as a system of signs, then (2) by conceptualising the link between law and style in the thought of C.S. Peirce and highlighting some of the insights from a Peircean take on legal semiotics that may contribute to our understanding of the role of style in making meaning in law. It is argued that, for a Peircean analysis of law, three levels can be distinguished, from the ‘surface structure’ down to the ‘deep structure’. It is at the middle level (that of the ‘basic structure’) that a semiotic approach can yield coherent insights in terms of style, by examining the symbols and metaphors that make for the expressibility of ‘habits’, namely experience-based patterns of action and interpretation.

Keywords

law and culturestylesemioticspragmaticsC.S. Peirce
Type
Special Issue Article
Information
International Journal of Law in Context , Volume 15 , Special Issue 3: The Many Faces of ‘Style’ in Law and Legal Scholarship , September 2019 , pp. 263 - 273
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Balkin, JM (1991) The promise of legal semiotics. Texas Law Review 69, 1831–1852.Google Scholar
Bencze, M (2015) Az ítéleti indokolások diagnosztikája – az ítélkezési stílus vizsgálatának jelentősége [The diagnostics of judicial reasoning: the importance of researching judicial style]. In Szabó, M (ed.), A jog nyelvi dimenziója [The Linguistic Dimension of Law]. Miskolc: Bíbor, pp. 129–139.Google Scholar
Bergman, M (2009) Peirce's Philosophy of Communication: The Rhetorical Underpinnings of the Theory of Signs. London/New York: Continuum.Google Scholar
Chomsky, N (1964) Current Issues in Linguistic Theory. The Hague: Mouton.Google Scholar
Colapietro, V (2008) Peircean semeiotic and legal practices: rudimentary and ‘rhetorical’ considerations. International Journal for the Semiotics of Law 21, 223–246.Google Scholar
Eco, U (2000) Kant and the Platypus: Essays on Language and Cognition. London: Vintage.Google Scholar
Eco, U (2004) ‘On style’. In Eco U (ed.), On Literature. Orlando, FL: Harcourt, pp. 161–179.Google Scholar
Edelman, M (1964) The Symbolic Uses of Politics. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
Geertz, C (1973) The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays. London: Hutchinson.Google Scholar
H. Szilágyi, I (2005) The Roma way – comparative legal studies: comparative law, sociology and anthropology. In H. Szilágyi, I and Paksy, M (eds), Ius unum lex multiplex: Studia Z. Péteri dedicata. Budapest: Szent István Társulat, pp. 129–150.Google Scholar
Hartshorne, C and Weiss, P (eds) (1932–1958) Collected Papers of Charles S. Peirce, 8 vols. Cambridge, MA: Belknap.Google Scholar
Hausman, CR (2008) Charles Peirce's categories and the growth of reason. International Journal for the Semiotics of Law 21, 209–222.Google Scholar
Hjelmslev, L (1953) Prolegomena to a Theory of Language. Baltimore: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Houser, N and Kloesel, C (eds) (1992) The Essential Peirce: Selected Philosophical Writings. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Iser, W (2000) The Range of Interpretation. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Jackson, B (1985) Semiotics and Legal Theory. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Jackson, B (1988) Law, Fact and Narrative Coherence. Roby, Merseyside: Deborah Charles.Google Scholar
Jackson, B (1995) Making Sense in Law: Linguistic, Psychological and Semiotic Perspectives. Roby, Merseyside: Deborah Charles.Google Scholar
James, W (1907) Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Kevelson, R (1986) Semiotics and methods of legal inquiry: interpretation and discovery in law from the perspective of Peirce's speculative rhetoric. Indiana Law Journal 61, 355–371.Google Scholar
Kevelson, R (1987) Introduction to the First Round Table on Law and Semiotics. In Kevelson, R (ed.), Law and Semiotics. New York: Plenum Press, pp. 1–24.Google Scholar
Kevelson, R (1988) The Law as a System of Signs. New York: Plenum Press.Google Scholar
Lasswell, HD (1965) Style in the language of politics. In Lasswell, HD and Leites, N (eds), Language of Politics: Studies in Quantitative Semantics. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, pp. 20–39.Google Scholar
Mannheim, K (1982) Structures of Thinking. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Miller, EF (1979) Metaphor and political knowledge. The American Political Science Review 73, 155–173.Google Scholar
Nöth, W (2010) The criterion of habit in Peirce's definitions of the symbol. Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 46, 82–93.Google Scholar
Paavola, S (2005) Peircean abduction: instinct or inference? Semiotica 153, 131–154.Google Scholar
Pearson, C (2008a) Beyond Peirce: the new science of semiotics and the semiotics of law. International Journal for the Semiotics of Law 21, 247–296.Google Scholar
Pearson, C (2008b) Introduction to the Special Issue on Peircean semeiotic. International Journal for the Semiotics of Law 21, 201–208.Google Scholar
Pethő, J (2011) Alakzat és jelentés. Az alakzatok stílus- és jelentésképző szerepe a szövegben. [Figures and Meaning: The Stylistic and Semantic Role of Tropes in the Text]. Budapest: Tinta.Google Scholar
Posner, R (2004) Basic tasks of cultural semiotics. In Withalm, G and Wallmannsberger, J (eds), Signs of Power – Power of Signs: Essays in Honor of Jeff Bernard. Vienna: INST, pp. 56–89.Google Scholar
Saussure, F de (2011) Course in General Linguistics. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Sebeok, TA and Sebeok, JU (1980) ‘You Know My Method’: A Juxtaposition of Charles S. Peirce and Sherlock Holmes. Bloomington, IN: Gaslight.Google Scholar
Staat, W (1993) On abduction, deduction, induction and the categories. Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 29, 225–237.Google Scholar
Stepanov, Y (1971) Semiotika [Semiotics]. Moscow: Nauka.Google Scholar
Tiefenbrun, SW (2007) The semiotics of women's human rights in Iran. Connecticut Journal of International Law 23, 1–81.Google Scholar
Van, Fleet P (2011) Tarski, Peirce and truth-correspondences in law: can semiotic truth-analysis adequately describe legal discourse? In Broekman, JM and Mootz, FJ (eds), The Semiotics of Law in Legal Education. Dordrecht: Springer, pp. 57–73.Google Scholar
Weinrich, H (1966) Linguistik der Lüge. Heidelberg: Schneider.Google Scholar
Wiener, N (1948) Cybernetics. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Wiener, N (1950) The Human Use of Human Beings – Cybernetics and Society. London: Eyre and Spottiswoode.Google Scholar
Wigmore, JH (1928) A Panorama of the World's Legal Systems. Saint Paul: West Publishing Company.Google Scholar