Specifics of the use of text categories in the texts of court decisions (based on the decision of the Supreme Court of Great Britain in the case «Perry v Raleys Solicitors»)

• Main Author: Suetina Olesya G.
• Format: Article
• Language: deu
• Published: Publishing and Printing Center NOSU 2020-03-01
• Series: Актуальные проблемы филологии и педагогической лингвистики
• Subjects: legal text; judgement; text categories; coherence; informativeness; segmentation; retrospection; modality
• Online Access: http://philjournal.ru/upload/2020-1/167-175.pdf
• ISSN: 2079-6021; 2619-029X

The article discusses the specifics of the implementation of textual categories of connectedness, informativeness, segmentation, retrospection and modality in the texts of court decisions (based on the decision of the Supreme Сourt of Great Britain in the case «Perry v Raleys Solicitors»). Coherence at the lexical level manifests itself by the presence of repetitions, repeated nomination and pronominal reference, characteristic of official-business speech, providing an extremely accurate understanding of what is read, as well as hyperohyponymic communication. The use of synonymy as a means of coherence in the texts of the official-business style is unacceptable, because it brings a change in shades of meaning, contradicts the task of achieving maximum accuracy of perception of information. The court decision is also characterized by forms of lexical cohesion, which expresses itself in a clear structure of the text, the presence of sections, subsections and paragraphs with numbering. The connectedness of the text of the judgment also provides an abundance of introductory words. Informativeness is realized in the text of a court decision by means of cognitive information, which is represented primarily by numerous legal terms, as well as operational information expressed in its operative part. The text category of articulability associated with the compositional and logical organization of the text is fully implemented in the text of the court decision. The high level of structure of the text of the court decision allows the recipient to quickly navigate its content, facilitates the perception of information. The category of retrospection is of crucial importance in the text of the court decision in connection with the need to describe the actual side of the case, namely, events that occurred in the past. Another form of implementing the category of retrospection in the text of a court decision is quoting normative legal acts. The texts of court decisions also implement intersubjective, subjective-evaluative and referential varieties of modality.