LEGAL DISCOURSE IN THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIONIST PARADIGM (construction of interethnic relations)

Abstract

The paper presents some results of the research that is aimed at revealing the mechanisms of discursive construction of international and interethnic relations in different types of discourse. The object of study in this fragment is the legal discourse, which is viewed within the paradigm of social constructionism. The author consolidates studies of law as discursive practice and outlines an appropriate methodological perspective, which presupposes the interpretation of legal discourse in social and axiological context, participation of society in legal-discursive practices, and the essential role of legal discourse in power relations. To perform the analysis of the ‘Strategy of State national policy of the Russian Federation’, the author applies the categories of social actor, implicature, specifying and vagueness, which are typically exploited in Critical Discourse Analysis. The results demonstrate that the document in question categorises the participants in interethnic relations and constructs a few pairs of interacting parties. The state is represented as a key actor in interethnic relations. The document also operates the discursively opposite mechanisms of specifying and vagueness to problematise certain aspects of the relations. Axiologically laden abstract categories and implicature also construct interethnic relations.

Keywords

• legal discourse
• law
• social constructionism
• interethnic relations
• representations
• actors.