On Genre as the Primary Unit of Language (Not Only) in Law

Abstract

Taking as points of departure modern pragmatic theory and the information-theoretic view of communication offered by Levinson, this paper re-defines the notion of “genre” as a primarily top-down functioning kind of pre-existing, conventionalized package deal in construing meaning. As a consequence, this paper argues for relativizing the role of code (langue), given information in favor of pre-existing pragmatic-functional knowledge in “making meaning”. This discussion is focused on law, which is where the issue of whether and how much meaning is “in the text”, and what it means to be “in the text” is theoretically and practically paramount.

Keywords

• text type
• genre
• cognition
• psycholinguistics
• macrostructure
• superstructure