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Article published In:
Journal of Historical Pragmatics
Vol. 25:3 (2024) ► pp.392–418

Judges’ reformulations in judicial interpretation in Chinese judgments

A comparative analysis

ORCID logo | Southeast University
| No. 1 Junior Middle School of Binhai County
In hybrid legal contexts in China, judges’ speech acts of reformulating rules serve to demonstrate their ideological and linguistic preferences in law enforcement. A comparative analysis of judges’ reformulations in judgments in the traditional (imperial) and contemporary periods in this study discloses a disparity in their speech style over time. Though judges in the two periods both navigate between the ethical discourse and the legal discourse in the negotiation of meaning in law, traditional judges are found to have reformulated rules from various sources, particularly those of Confucian classics, acting as more of a constructive legal interpreter. In contrast, contemporary judges tend to reformulate rules of the codified law in a more monologic style, thereby displaying greater respect for the autonomy of law in their reformulations. These differences are interpreted from a socio-cultural standpoint.
Keywords: dialogism, judgments, reformulation, speech act
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The language of judges’ reformulations
    • 2.1Reformulation as a communicative act in legal settings
    • 2.2Judges’ speech act in the Chinese legal context
  • 3.Data and method
  • 4.Classifying reformulations in judgments
    • 4.1Types of reformulations
    • 4.2Sources of reformulations
  • 5.Comparative analysis of reformulations in judicial interpretation
    • 5.1The choice of rules
    • 5.2Judges’ orientation to interaction
    • 5.3The interaction between reformulations in type and source
      • 5.3.1Traditional judges’ diversified and dialogic reformulations
      • 5.3.2Contemporary judges’ routinised and monologic reformulations
  • 6.Discussion
  • 7.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 8 August 2024
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/jhp.21002.zha
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