A Pragmatic Analysis of Legal Proofs of Criminal Intent

Sol Azuelos-Atias | University of Haifa

Hardbound – Available

ISBN 9789027227164 | EUR 99.00 | USD 149.00

e-Book –

ISBN 9789027292155 | EUR 99.00 | USD 149.00

A Pragmatic Analysis of Legal Proofs of Criminal Intent is a detailed investigation of proofs of criminal intent in Israeli courtrooms. The book analyses linguistic, pragmatic, interpretative and argumentative strategies used by Israeli lawyers and judges in order to examine the defendant’s intention. There can be no doubt that this subject is worthy of a thorough investigation. A person’s intention is a psychological phenomenon and therefore, unless the defendant chooses to confess his intent, it cannot be proven directly – either by evidence or by witnesses’ testimonies. The defendant’s intention must be inferred usually from the overall circumstances of the case; verbal and situational contexts, cultural and ideological assumptions and implicatures should be taken into account. The linguistic analysis of these inferences presented here is necessarily comprehensive: it requires consideration of a variety of theoretical frameworks including speech act theory, discourse analysis, argumentation theory, polyphony theory and text linguistics.

[Discourse Approaches to Politics, Society and Culture, 25] 2007. x, 180 pp.

Publishing status: Available

https://doi.org/10.1075/dapsac.25

Table of Contents

Phonetic transcription | p. ix

Chapter I. The linguistic framework | pp. 1–29

1.1 The subject and aim of the work
1.2 A theoretical framework
1.3 The Israeli legal system
1.4 Legal argumentation
1.5 Pragmatic and discoursal characteristics of the Israeli legal criminal discourse

Chapter II. Legal causation and criminal intent: Pragmatic and linguistic aspects | pp. 31–50

2.1 Introduction
2.2 Linguistic reconstruction of causation in legal discourse
2.3 Reconstructing the mental element of the offence: Proving criminal intent
2.4 Summary

Chapter III. A socio-pragmatic portrayal of "the Israeli reasonable person" | pp. 51–83

3.1 Introduction
3.2 The degree of concreteness of the notion of "the reasonable person" in the legal "linguistic game"
3.3 The concept of a "Reasonable Person" - the approaches of the parliament and the judgment
3.4 "The reasonable person", de facto
3.5 "The Israeli reasonable person" and the value of conjugal fidelity
3.6 Summary

Chapter IV. A rhetoric-pragmatic study of figures in the legal drama: The accused, the victim | pp. 85–100

4.1 Introduction
4.2 The "ultimate narrator" model strategy
4.3 The "audition" model strategy
4.4 Summary

Conclusions | pp. 101–116

Appendix 1 | pp. 125–142

Appendix 2 | pp. 143–153

Appendix 3 | pp. 155–162

Appendix 4 | pp. 163–177

Index | pp. 179–180

“I recommend this book to scholars with a major interest in pragmatic aspects of Forensic Linguistics. It provides a scholarly and deep analysis of the semantics of criminal intent, and reaches some unexpected conclusions, particularly concerning the expression of causality. It also reveals how underlying English Common Law concepts have been transferred to an unrelated language, Hebrew, in a remarkably intact form. It more than meets its objective of throwing light on the linguistics of the legal evaluation of criminal intent.”

John Gibbons, University of New South Wales

“In A Pragmatic Analysis of Legal Proofs of Criminal Intent, Sol Azuelos-Atias does an excellent job. From an interdisciplinary pragmatic perspective, which takes account of linguistic and situational contexts as well as cultural and ideological presuppositions and implicatures, she provides illuminating insights into the working of the Israeli legal system, with its typical mixture of features from Common Law, Continental Law and Jewish Law. In my view, her lucid and informative analyses of the linguistic, pragmatic, interpretative and argumentative strategies Israeli prosecutors, defence counsels and judges use in discussions of legal proof of criminal intent are a stimulating invitation to carry out similar pragmatic – and comparative – analyses of the discourse proceedings in other legal systems.”

Frans H. van Eemeren, University of Amsterdam

“One of the chapters of this book deals, among other things, with a pragmatic analysis of a ‘reasonable person’: what would she do and how would she react in the face of certain circumstances, including surprising ones. In the same vein, we could ask how would the ‘reasonable reader’ react to several of the surprising facts this book reveals about the Israeli legal system – especially when these facts clash with what the system itself expects from the ‘reasonable person’? It is the exposition of this and similar clashes, where basic presumptions of the law, of its practitioners, and of common sense are shown to be in open conflict, that renders this book a must, not only for Israelis. For it forces the reasonable reader to wonder whether legal systems, judges, investigators, prosecutors and attorneys use a language that really is shared by the reasonable speaker. This is an unusually informative, thought provoking, and also at times moving book.”

Marcelo Dascal, Tel Aviv University

“This book is a very valuable contribution to scholars who deal with the intersection of linguistics and law. Although its setting is the Israeli courtroom, the author’s analyses and findings can be generalized easily to other legal contexts and systems. Azuelos-Atias gives a detailed linguistic analysis of the ways Israeli lawyers and judges use pragmatic, grammatical, interpretive, and legal argument strategies in courtroom discourse. In doing so, the book joins other recent studies of language of judges and lawyers, providing evidence of the growing importance of linguistics to this field.”

Roger W. Shuy, Georgetown University, Washington, DC

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This list is based on CrossRef data as of 18 july 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

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