UNDERSTANDING LEGAL DISCOURSE IN MODERN LINGUISTICS: THE SOCIO-CULTURAL DIMENSION

Abstract

The article presents an analysis of the socio-cultural role of legal discourse as a form of institutional discourse involved in the construction of social reality, based on modern linguistic and interdisciplinary approaches. To solve the tasks set, the methods of critical discourse analysis, sociosemiotic analysis, as well as elements of conceptual and frame analysis based on the ideas of P. Bourdieu, J. Habermas and latest developments in the field of legal linguistics and media legal discourse are applied. As a result, the key socio-cultural functions of legal discourse are identified: legitimization of the social order through authorized naming, participation in the struggle for the interpretation of events through competing legal frameworks, mediatization and digitalization of legal communication, as well as the specific role of English-language legal discourse as a mediator in transnational legal interaction. The results obtained can be used in the further description of genres, linguistic features and speech strategies of law in modern communicative environments.