Legal Discourse

The term legal discourse brings two terms to mind: language and discourse. Scholars have insightful ideas of language and discourse, but few discuss their differences. To me, language, human language to be exact, is an actual product in existence created and recorded by our forefathers. Whatever the meaning it carries is the meaning from the society in which the language is recorded. Therefore, the meaning that language carries is the meaning of the language ‘in vacuum’, and is the ‘common-core meaning’ (Wang Zhenhua, 2008). In this sense, we may say that language is an actual product in existence waiting for us to use. When language is used, both orally or in writing, a lot of things affect the ‘common-core meaning’, such as who uses it for whom, how it is used and, for what purposes it is used. Therefore, the context of culture and the context of situation are involved in the use of language. In this case, the language in use starts to bear meanings beyond the ‘common-core meaning’. This is discourse, in which the experience is presented, the message is organized, and the relations are built. These activities in discourse in turn add to the ‘common-core meaning’ of language. As such, the linguistic meanings of language are updated and iterated. Language is used in any field human beings create. The result is that we have classroom discourse, military discourse, medical discourse, religious discourse, and of course, legal discourse.