STATUTES AND CONTRACTS - AN ANALYSIS OF LEGAL SPEECH ACTS IN THE ENGLISH-LANGUAGE OF THE LAW

This paper is concerned with the language used in legal speech acts in legislative texts and contracts in the field of English Contract Law. The central objects of study are regulative functions with a particular view to establishing realization patterns of the rhetorical functions of directive and commissive acts. The findings show that the language of the law characteristically selects patterns of regulatives distinct from, for example, the patterns typically selected in everyday conversational English. The characteristics of the language of the law can be interpreted within the adherence to legal institutions, as well as in terms of the face redress required by the socio-pragmatic situation.