Language and Law / Linguagem e Direito

Vol. 10 N.º 1 (2023): Language and Law / Linguagem e Direito

2024-04-26

Complete Issue

Interpretação de normas constitucionais na interface entre semântica e pragmática

João Pedro Pádua — 2024-04-26

Interpretação de textos normativos é a atividade básica, e talvez mais importante, do/a jurista. Por isso, trabalhos dogmáticos sobre a assim-chamada teoria da interpretação são abundantes na literatura jurídica, especialmente um subcampo dessa teoria, que estuda as particularidades atribuídas à interpretação constitucional. Em busca de conceitos analiticamente mais poderosos, frequentemente a teoria do direito recorre aos estudos da linguagem, nos âmbitos da linguística e da filosofia da linguagem. Porém os usos que se fazem desses conceitos são problemáticos em dois níveis: (i) tornam tais conceitos, originalmente descritivos, isto é, sobre como o/as usuário/as da língua realmente produzem sentido dos discursos, em conceitos normativos, isto é, como esses sentidos deveriam ser produzidos na interpretação de normas jurídicas. Além disso, (ii) os usos de conceitos dos estudos da linguagem são feitos de forma descuidada, com pouca conexão com como são compreendidos e utilizados em seus campos de origem. Nesse artigo, procuro apresentar uma revisão de literatura de sobre como a semântica e a pragmática podem ser utilizadas coerente e descritivamente para analisar empiricamente os processos reais de produção de sentido na interpretação de normas jurídicas (especialmente constitucionais). Depois de criar um modelo baseado nessa revisão, testo esse modelo em um estudo de caso sobre a ADI 4.277, julgada em 2011, pelo STF, e que reconheceu a constitucionalidade da união estável homoafetiva. Seções de discussão e conclusão, com propostas da relevância deste estudo para a teoria da interpretação jurídica, para a separação de poderes e para os estudos sobre a linguagem da interpretação de normas jurídicas encerram o artigo.

Joke or threat?

Marie Bojsen-Møller — 2024-04-26

This article examines a Danish criminal case concerning a high school student who posted a picture on Instagram with the caption ‘I’ll be the next school shooter guys, lmao, watch out’ (Danish: jeg bliver den næste school shooter guys, lmao, watch out). Reactions to – or uptakes on (Freadman, 1994) – the Instagram post were split between two distinct types; some took it as a threat and some took it as a joke. Building on theory on threatening communications (e.g. Fraser, 1998; Solan & Tiersma, 2005; Gales, 2019, author et al., 2020), theory on humor (Billig, 2005; Norrick, 2010; Tsakona, 2017) and genre theory (Miller, 1984; Devitt, 2009; Freadman, 2012, 2020), this article studies these diverging uptakes as they are presented within the court case through both transcripts of audio recordings from the court room and court documents.The findings of this study show that while linguistic interpretation is mostly limited to the netcronym ‘lmao’, different non-linguistic behavior is often used as justification for the diverging interpretations of the linguistic behavior. Not only the utterance itself, but also the context of the utterance, including its uptakes, have a bearing on the outcome of the case and the assessment of the defendant’s intent. As such, this study offers important insight into an area that Gales (2019) argues is in need of further interdisciplinary research, namely how contextual features can influence the outcome of criminal cases concerning disputed threats.

Disguise and imitation of language style in WhatsApp messages

Meike de Boer — 2024-04-26

The deliberate manipulation of evidence is routinely considered in most branches of forensic science, but in the field of forensic authorship analysis it is a relatively new concern. This paper reports the findings from an experiment which explored what happens when authors are asked to manipulate their language style. We asked 120 Dutch students to write WhatsApp messages in their normal style and in two manipulated conditions: disguise and imitation. Results show that authors are able to introduce major changes in their language use, which are most substantial when they have access to messages written by the person they are trying to impersonate. These findings imply that the possibility of disguise and imitation should be considered when conducting forensic authorship analysis, especially when more than one candidate for authorship could have had access to the same device or account.

Developing a Resource Model of Power and Authority in Anonymous Online Criminal Interactions

Helen Newsome — 2024-04-26

The purpose of this paper is to provide both a theoretical foundation and a practical framework for analysing power and authority in online interactions, for application in forensic linguistic contexts. In online discussion fora differences in institutional or social power are often obscure and posters may be anonymous. This lack of contextual knowledge can create a challenge for the analyst in finding a framework to theorise, explore, and describe these sorts of power performance. In this paper, we provide a framework to describe the basis on which individuals make claims to power and use this framework to explore the nature and distribution of power across different fora of both criminal and benign intent. This is developed through an analysis of three online discussion fora, of approximately 160,000 words, resulting in a framework of eight main categories of power resource. This allows us to contrast the three fora, showing differences in the nature and distribution of power resource, and also enables description of individuals as high-resource or low-resource with regards to their claims to power. This theory and framework can also be productive in the analysis of language and power in computer mediated communication (CMC) more widely.

Jack Unterweger - an authorship analysis of the notorious killer's autobiography "Fegefeuer oder die Reise ins Zuchthaus"

Karoline Marko — 2024-04-26

Jack Unterweger, a notorious killer and celebrated author, was a highly skilled manipulator and was caught more than once to have plagiarized poems and short stories (Herwig, 2022; Leake, 2010). Praised for his work as an author, and particularly for his autobiography “Fegefeuer oder die Reise ins Zuchthaus”, Unterweger was released from prison in 1990. Almost 40 years after the publication of his autobiography, rumors have been voiced that Unterweger might not have written his autobiography by himself and that Sonja von Eisenstein, one of Unterweger’s benefactors and supporters, might have been involved in the writing of it (Herwig, 2022). Thus, based on a corpus of nine books by Unterweger and von Eisenstein, this study sets out to investigate whether these rumors are potentially true. The analysis is carried out with the help of a combination of quantitative (HCA, PCA) and qualitative (stylistic) methods. The analysis shows that Unterweger’s writing style is similar to the one of the questioned autobiography, but that someone else’s writing style is also present.