Zur Gliederung der Rechtskommunikation: mit einem Ansatz im Strafrecht

Abstract

In the present paper we look on languages for special purposes through the prism of their horizontal and vertical structure. First, we analyse the features of Lothar Hoffmann?s structuring model of LSPs. In the next step we focus on the structuring models of the legal language. Against the backdrop of our analysis, it is stated, the models referred to have a too general bent so that the complexity of a LSP can come across through them. Finally, we propose a more sophisticated model for structuring LSPs and we discuss it on the example of the language of the criminal law. This model is additionally replenished with a profound approach.

This paper is a contribution to the LSP research and the core of the proposed LSP structuring model can serve as a point of reference to depict the complexity of other LSPs. Additionally, this paper can be seen both as a starting point to a detailed description of all text types in the criminal law, and as an incentive to describe text types of other law branches, in order to determine, first, the complexity of the legal language as a whole, and second, having compared the results, the distance between the particular legal languages