Article

Name: Objective and subjective factors for variability in interpreting the law text in specialized legal literature and in everyday consciousness of language speakers

Authors: Kim L. G.

Kemerovo State University, Kemerovo, Russian Federation

In the section Linguistics

Abstract:

The paper discusses the problem of the professional and common interpretation of the legal text, determining the relation of these notions, the difference between their subjects, goals, features, and results. Article 272 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation was chosen as a material for the study, with its content being the subject of interpretations by the professional community and ordinary citizens. Comparing the comments on this article in the works of lawyers and polemics in the professional community has allowed establishing the variability of interpretations and identifying the factors of variability. It has been found that, in the professional community, a legal text is inevitably characterized by a variety of interpretations, resulting from various factors. The common interpretation results were obtained by means of a linguistic interpretation experiment. The analysis of the experimental results has revealed that ordinary native speakers perceive the content of the original legal text ambiguously. Everyday interpretation proves to produce interpretative texts reflecting semantic-pragmatic versions as a realization of semantic-pragmatic meanings of the text of the law. Both legal professionals and ordinary citizens have been found to have ambiguous interpretations, which is due to objective and subjective factors. On the one hand, the variability of legal text interpretations is determined by the peculiarities of language wordings and the terminology used. On the other hand, there is also the qualitative diversity of types of language personality or the speakers of ordinary consciousness.

Keywords: legal text, text interpretation, professional interpretation, ordinary interpretation, interpretation variability

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