Grammatical analysis: its role in the reading of legal texts
Loading...
Date
2007
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
In almost all the statutory sentences that obtain in the statutes of the University of Zululand and the University of Swaziland respectively, modification and subordination or rather embedding form part of the essential techniques used by the writers to enhance the communicative potential of the sentences. The objective of the study, therefore, was to establish that using adjectival and adverbial information in legal texts does have an effect on the act of reading and interpretation and the resultant meaning on the text. The construction of the sentences in the two statutes favours the study's hypotheses. The first hypothesis is that using adjectival and adverbial information in legal texts significantly enhances clarity and precision of the expression as mediated by the text. The second hypothesis is. that reference both within the nominal group and the verbal group in legal texts is susceptible of further specification.
In chapter two, we argue, in Bex's (1996:95) terms, that texts orient themselves to readers in particular ways, and organize their information in ways appropriate to the medium selected and the context in which they occur. We also note that in the construction and interpretation of texts due attention is given to the elements in the language which are capable of encoding various functions and particular realizations of these functions determine the register of the text under consideration (cf. Bex, 1996:95). In our analysis of the statutes of the University of Zululand and the University of Swaziland respectively, we establish that language varies according to the activity in which it plays a part (Leech et al, 1982:10). We also establish that sentences with different structures have different communicative functions and that one important property of a sentence is its communicative potential (Akmajian et al, 1995:229). This communicative potential of sentences, with specific reference to the statutory sentences under discussion, is, as already indicated earlier on, enhanced by using modification both within the nominal group and the verbal group.
Thus, it is worth emphasizing that in enhancing the effectiveness and communicative potential of the statutory sentences in order to achieve clarity and precision of the expression, modifying elements carrying adjectival and adverbial information are put to use in constructing the sentences. In consequence thereof, modification which employs non-nuclear constituents is accorded a central role in determining the effectiveness of the sentences whilst the acceptability of the sentences in terms of its grammaticaltty is determined solely by the nuclear constituents. Thus the argument that the occurrence of a modifier is never essential for the internal structure of a noun phrase and that a modifier can be easily omitted without affecting the acceptability of the noun phrase (Aarts and
Aarts, 1988:63) is, in our view, not at issue. Our concern is not so much with the acceptability of both reference and predication within the structure of the sentence. Rather, we are concerned with whether the communicative potential or effectiveness of the sentences makes it possible for the communicative intent to be realized as intended. Our analysis of the sentences in the statutes in question, demonstrate that the necessary specification is contained in the modifier and that a modifier has the effect of explicitness and of specifying precisely that which is the point of information (Halliday and Hasan, 1997:96). Our view, therefore, is that although non-nuclear constituents (modifiers) in a sentence are optional, their role of specification cannot go unnoticed since they are tightly integrated into the structure of the clause (cf. Huddleston and Pullum, 2005). This view is corroborated by Akmajian et al's (1995:223) argument that the meaning of a syntactically complex expression is determined by the meaning of its constituents and their grammatical relations. Hence we argue that notwithstanding the fact that nuclear constituents are obligatory for the sentence to be accepted as grammatical, the grammaticality of the sentence as determined by the nuclear constituents does not necessarily translate into its effectiveness as a communicative device of information. It bears repeating, therefore, that in almost all the statutory sentences of the two universities, modification and subordination or rather embedding from part of the essential techniques use by the writers to enhance the communicative potential and effectiveness of the sentences.
Description
Submitted to the Faculty of Arts in fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of General Linguistics at the University of Zululand, 2007.
Keywords
Gramma analysys, Language analysis