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Change of style, change of mind: lawyers’ writing manners

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 September 2019

Alexandra Mercescu
Alexandra Mercescu*
Affiliation:
Research Assistant, Faculty of Law, West University of Timișoara
*
*Corresponding author. E-mail: alexandra.mercescu@e-uvt.ro
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Abstract

This paper explores the relationship between style and epistemology as regards the discipline of law – especially in the Romanistic tradition – and, more specifically, its resistance to interdisciplinarity. Drawing on literary theory and discourse analysis literature, the first part of this paper examines the notion of ‘style’ in relation to academic disciplines. It argues that the variety of writing styles reflects the various epistemologies underlying the different disciplinary discourses and makes interdisciplinarity difficult to implement in general. The second part of this study borrows Roland Barthes's distinction between ‘readerly’ and ‘writerly’ texts in order to show that lawyers’ writing manners hinder the ability of law to connect with other disciplines. Against the background of the two sections, this contribution will finally include a discussion on what could be done to enhance law(yers)’s capability for interdisciplinary thinking, concluding that style might be not so insignificant a place to start with.

Keywords

legal epistemologyliterary theorydiscourse analysisinterdisciplinaritystylecivil-law tradition
Type
Special Issue Article
Information
International Journal of Law in Context , Volume 15 , Special Issue 3: The Many Faces of ‘Style’ in Law and Legal Scholarship , September 2019 , pp. 310 - 326
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019 

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