Discourse Analysis in Legal Writing Assignment
a.) Introduction: • States what field you are researching and introduces the resources you are using to analyze it (text, interviews, and observations).• Include the overall purpose of writing in the fieldb.) Purpose, Goals, and Audience• What is the main purpose of writing in your field?• How does this affect the way you write?• Why is this the main purpose?• Who are you writing to most often in the field?• What are the goals of writing in your field?• Include an example from your text analysis to prove this as well as from you interview and observationc.) Format, Style, Tone, Language• What is the format most often used?o Why is this the format chosen? What does it do for the purpose of the writing?• What kinds of style and language are used?o Do these reflect the writing purpose? How do they work together to reach a common purpose?o What is the tone?o Does any of this change depending on writing situation?o Include examples from text, interviews, and observations for supportd.) Organization and Genre• What organization is used? Does this change any? • What is beneficial about this type of organization• What genres are used?• How do the genre and organization used fulfill the text’s purpose?• Why are these used versus another type?• Include examples from text, interviews, and observations for supporte.) What is valued?• What does this community value in writing?• Why is it valued?• What contributions does it make to the field• Include examples from text, interviews, and observations for supportf.) Rhetorical Appeals• Which rhetorical appeals are used most often?• Why are these used most often as opposed to the others?• Do these appeals strengthen writing in this field? How?• Include Examplesf.) Conclusion:• Overall what did you learn from this experience and what are the big ideas that helped you determine how writing is done?• Interpret your overall impression of writing in your major.
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Discourse Analysis in Legal Writing
Linguistic awareness in law research and writing is a must have skill in understanding how to communicate in legal terms. When understanding the legal linguistic it makes it easier to analyze legal opinions, legal case studies, appellate briefs and many other such documents which are mandatory learning tools among the students of law. With thorough understanding of the legal linguistic the students learn how to manipulate legal language to fit their desired legal goals. Hoffman opines that this kind of language manipulation has three main advantages. Firstly it helps them identify the authenticity of a legal text. Secondly, helps the students to analyze the effectiveness of legal text. Lastly, it helps them criticize texts to achieve their desired legal understanding in matters of litigation (Hoffman, 1). This research papers focuses on analyzing the legal text using an interview that was conducted on a teacher of law, observations made in law documents and also using a written scholarly text on law. The legal text used in this study is entitled “sexual advance directives” written by Alexander Boni-Saenz for the Alabama Law Review Journal.
* Purpose, Goals, and Audience
Writing in the field of law is a mandatory requirement and in order to write effectively one should have a thorough mastery of legal language use within the context of their writing. The main purpose of legal writing is to communicate effectively and authentically to your audience. Written communication is deemed the most appropriate form of expression in legal matters for various purposes. Firstly, it’s for the purpose of documentation, documents are deemed as the most accurate and can be produced as evidence in case of litigation unlike spoken words. This is essential for future reference as case studies for analysis by other legal practitioners. Secondly, legal writing is necessary in order to avoid misunderstanding or in order to communicate effectively to suit your intended purpose. Thirdly, legal writing is necessary to justify your action and explain yourself. In this case it’s necessary especially when seeking to indicate the jurisprudence in your legal writing. It serves to indicate that your actions or decision is in line with the provisions of the law and law of natural justice. Lastly, writing in law is necessary for purpose of communicating legal implications to the involved party. In this case it majorly among the legal practitioners and also when a litigant is serving the accused with a notice or an order to the law enforcing agencies.
The main audience in legal writing includes but not limited to the legal practitioners, students of law and the public in general. The legal practitioners rely on writing in deducing the meanings of their cases and in making conclusions in relation to the cases they are handling. Judgments provided in courts of law such as the Supreme Court, the high court and the appellate court are required to be made in writing. This is necessary for documentation purpose. They can also be availed to the students of law and other interested parties in order for them to unfold the wisdom or the jurisprudence expressed by the judges in reference the laws of the land and other rules and regulations.
To illustrate the above with examples, first in the article by Alexender is written to legal practitioners and policy makers arguing for the need for sexual advance directives by people who are unable to make decisions about their sexual issues. He says this will prevent them from sexual abuse. Also he refers to various laws in justifying his understanding of sexual advance directives; the Article then draws on insights from criminal law, fiduciary law, and the law of wills to fashion a workable regime of sexual advance directives (Boni-Saenz, 2). This is meant to justify and convince the readers why his approach is appropriate and is drawn from the legal frameworks.
In the interview, the interviewee admits that he writes for a majority of audience majorly his students. He says he writes to avoid cases of misunderstanding in his communication and believes that written communications is the most effective, “Often when you write, you will think, and you will be able to make the topic more certain in the process of thinking, instead of thinking without thinking to complete the elaboration of a purpose”
Also writing in my school is the basic means of official communication whether in el...