Orazbayeva A. S.
Candidate of Philological Sciences, Senior Lecturer of
Theory of Languages and Literature Department at Kostanay State University
LEGAL LINGUISTICS AND
PROBLEMS OF INTERACTION BETWEEN LINGUISTICS AND LAW: THEORETICAL AND
APPLICATION ASPECTS
Social
functions of language are quite wide-ranging. Linguistics is known to have
relations with biology, psychology, geography, history, sociology, logic,
philosophy and many other sciences. Some independent branches of linguistic
knowledge were based on these relations: psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics,
ethnolinguistics etc. However, to this day some issues such as the legal aspects
of language and connection of linguistic with law remain unexplored in the
national science. There are only few references in the literature confirming
that such an aspect objectively exists and that it is a very important subject
of linguistic science [1,2]. But linguistics and law always have been sharing a
lot of common areas, and it is obvious that these sciences are drawing
together. In this context, the study of theoretical and practical issues
related to the new science of Kazakhstan – legal linguistics, the study of its
fundamental and applied aspects, in our opinion, is based upon the following
factors: 1) social,
political and communicative-linguistic topicality of working out the
legal linguistics issues relevant in law, mass media and in some political
areas. Since Kazakhstan was declared to be a democratic legal state it is
supposed to promote an openness of Kazakhstan society and state, the
availability of information on the functioning and performance of all
government branches. 2) the best international experience in legal linguistics: in
Western European and American literature, the legal aspect of language and
linguistic aspects of law are well represented
and diversified, especially issues of legal hermeneutics and logic are
being actively developed (interpretation, argumentation, linguistic expertize,
and etc.). In recent years the practice has been introduced in the Russian
science.
3)
In the
course of jurisprudence development various linguistic aspects of the law
are being developed, making it necessary to objectively raise the question of
the theoretical and practical interaction of linguistics and law. Currently,
this point is mainly raised by scholars-lawyers, often they underline the
prioritized specificity of law or they simply interpret linguistic specificity,
although some authors can see above single aspect or so-called
"departmental" vision of the linguistics role in law. Despite all the
theoretical and practical importance of the problem, unfortunately, in the national
science legal linguistics didn’t yet become an independent object of study in
linguistic science. There are only a handful of articles dedicated to this
subject, and mostly they were written by lawyers and not by linguists. And this
state of the nation legal linguistic defines the following problems for
researchers of the relations of Kazakh as official language and Kazakhstan
legislation: understanding the object and the subject matter of legal
linguistics as a new science, differentiation of legal and linguistic aspects
of phenomena taking place at the interface of language and law. legal
linguistics direction of applied nature - linguistic expertize conducted in
relation to the problems that arise in the expert opinions for legal claims to
the mass media, politicians and other defendants. Language experts currently
work mostly on their own discretion, and scientifically grounded methods, of
course, would help to avoid many difficulties and increase the quality of
expertizes appointed and held by the courts and investigative agencies.
Research in legal linguistics also associated with the need for educators with
professional knowledge in linguistics and law at the same time. [1]
It
is believed that the training on legal linguistics would be useful for lawyers
in order to optimize their dialogue with linguists through the court decrees
for the expert examination, as correct formulation of the issues would ensure
success of the case. In our opinion, at the present time in the practice of
appointing and conducting textological expertize the problem is lack of
differentiation between competences of lawyer and linguist (and between
linguist and political scientist, historian, psychologist, etc.). [2]
Demand
for specialists in the field of legal linguistics in modern society is large
enough. The future of the Philology Faculty in present education system,
focused largely on the actual demand of experts, largely depends on the close
cooperation with law schools to meet this demand.
Thus
the creation of the legal linguistics conception as a special humanitarian
discipline and its subdisciplines is extremely important. But at the same time
it should be noted that this research project is not intended to be exhaustive
and respectively does not imply coherent theoretical conception of legal
linguistics as a specific branch of linguistic knowledge, but it can contribute
to its development in the future.
References:
1 Brinev, K. I. On presumptions of linguistic examination: conflicting statements on the scale of the reduction / opinion // Forensic linguistics –7:
language as a phenomenon of legal communication. – Barnaul
2 Belchikov, Y. A. Invective vocabulary in the context of
some of the trends in modern Russian language communication // Philological Sciences.