Legal theory and semiotics
the legal semiotics critical approach
pp. 127-134
in: , Lawyers making meaning II, Berlin, Springer, 2013Abstract
A central theme of the book is the question how to proceed practicing the law when a lawyer has acquired semiotic knowledge and skills. The very same issue is also a direct effect of considering the legal semiotic modus operandi. Semiotic steps in legal work are steps to take in texts. Before lawyers write, they read. What they read, even if it is a string of incoherent words, can be named a text. Everything Peirce said about the sign and its triadic embedding or Greimas about texts, belongs to a lawyer's semiotic approach. That is an element of a lawyers' self-awareness and professional attitude. The legal semiotics modus operandi requires no complicated application or sophisticated methods but a sharpened awareness about reading and texts. To be a lawyer begins with listening to- and reading spoken and written texts. Attention is therefore on (1) the particularities of a text, its superstructure, surface and engenderment, (2) on the Greimas squares as exemplified for daily uses in legal practice and (3) on the question why names play such a decisive meaningful role in law.