Ingrid Simonnæs, doctoral dissertation

Summary

One of the main issues in legal linguistics is to discern the salient features of the legal language. In my doctoral dissertation “Problems of understanding LSP-texts. Concept Systems and Paraphrases as Instruments of Visualization and Verbalization in the Communication between Experts and Lay persons. An Investigation into Court Decisions” ¹, I focus on the problem of under¬standing legal texts (German court decisions and statutes). I have analyzed concept systems (concept relations) and paraphrases (reformu¬lations) as two communicative strategies for overcoming problems of understanding when lay persons are confronted with those legal texts.

The intended addressees of court decisions are both experts and lay persons. This pheno¬menon the sender (the judge) has to take into consideration if his communication (decision) is to succeed. Thus knowing the content or “meaning” of a statement is clearly insufficient: The addressee needs additional insight into specific concepts and concept systems. My analysis shows inter alia that court decisions of the Supreme court (Bundesgerichtshof) contain less reformulations than those of the lower courts, which I see as a reflection of the intended group of expert addressees for those messages.

It is commonly acknowledged that there has been a growing specialization in modern societies. Consequently, most people will find themselves in communication situations where they are at one time the expert and at another the lay person. Concept systems can then prove to be a good gateway to understanding the relations in a specific domain that was previously unfamiliar to the lay person, and reformulations can build a bridge between the term and the underlying knowledge(structure).
 

1)  “Verstehensprobleme bei Fachtexten. Zu Begriffssystemen und Paraphrasen als Visualisierungs- bzw. Verbalisierungsinstrumente in der Kommunikation zwischen Fachmann und Laien. Eine Untersuchung anhand gerichtlicher Entscheidungen”