An example from the Italian Constitutional Court: The voices of justice. Argumentative polyphony and strategic manoeuvring in judgement motivations

Bletsas, Marina

doi:10.1075/aic.9.05ble

In:Scrutinizing Argumentation in Practice
Edited by Frans H. van Eemeren and Bart Garssen
[Argumentation in Context 9] 2015
► pp. 79–98

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The voices of justice. Argumentative polyphony and strategic manoeuvring in judgement motivations

An example from the Italian Constitutional Court

Marina Bletsas | University of Bonn, Germany

Published online: 30 October 2015

https://doi.org/10.1075/aic.9.05ble

Combining the ScaPoLine (Nølke, Fløttum, & Norén, 2004; Nølke, 2009, 2011, 2013) with the (extended) pragma-dialectical approach (van Eemeren & Grootendorst 1984, 2004; van Eemeren 2010), I suggest a reconstruction of judgement motivations as critical discussions between a plurality of voices conveyed even in one and the same sentence. In particular, I present some illustrative examples of polyphonic strategic manoeuvring from a landmark judgment of the Italian Constitutional Court: n. 440/1995.

Keywords: critical discussion, Italian Constitutional Court, legal discourse, polyphony, pragma-dialectics, ScaPoLine, strategic manoeuvring

Cited by (2)

Cited by two other publications

Peruzzo, Katia

2025. 226227Chapter 9 International judicial discourse and non-derogatory language use: A case study on ECtHR judgments. In In the Minds of Judges, ► pp. 225 ff.

Palmieri, Rudi & Sabrina Mazzali-Lurati

2021. Strategic Communication with Multiple Audiences: Polyphony, Text Stakeholders, and Argumentation. International Journal of Strategic Communication 15:3 ► pp. 159 ff.

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