Cover not available

Article published In: International Journal of Corpus Linguistics: Online-First Articles

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload PDF
EPUB logo with download linkDownload EPUB
authorization required

A corpus-assisted discourse analysis of (Dis)Interest and (Un)Importance frames in leave to appeal decisions of the HKSAR appellate courts

 | City University of Hong Kong
 | City University of Hong Kong
Published online: 27 February 2026
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/ijcl.25079.mck
Abstract
This study presents a corpus-assisted discourse analysis examining the semantic frames of (Dis)Interest and (Un)Importance in leave to appeal decisions of the HKSAR appellate courts. With the use of two corpora — Approve (67,694 tokens) and Dismiss (143,462 tokens) — the research investigated the construction and use of (Dis)Interest and (Un)Importance frames. A further distinction of performative versus descriptive use informed the analysis. In terms of frame construction, decision writers used four frame elements: Trigger, Explanation, Degree, and Experiencer. The findings show that (Un)Importance frames appeared three times more frequently than (Dis)Interest frames. Reflecting the inherent nature of the outcome, Approve writers used significantly more performative Interest and Importance; Dismiss writers used significantly more performative Disinterest. Dismiss writers also used significantly more descriptive Importance in refutation structures. Qualitative analysis revealed that Approve decisions featured more straightforward performative framing, whereas Dismiss decisions displayed a complex interplay of performative and descriptive elements.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Conceptual framework
    • 2.1Knowledge emotions and frame semantics
    • 2.2Performative and descriptive distinction
    • 2.3Corpus approaches to legal discourse
  • 3.Methodology
    • 3.1The approve and dismiss corpora
    • 3.2Analytical procedure
  • 4.Findings
    • 4.1A general frame of (Dis)Interest and (Un)Importance
      • 4.1.1Trigger
      • 4.1.2Explanation
      • 4.1.3Degree
      • 4.1.4Experiencer
    • 4.2(Dis)Interest and (Un)Importance frame elements
    • 4.3Frequency distribution of (Dis)Interest and (Un)Importance
      • 4.3.1Performative/descriptive use of (Dis)Interest & (Un)Importance markers
      • 4.3.2Performative importance in approve decisions
      • 4.3.3Descriptive importance in dismiss decisions
      • 4.3.4Performative interest in approve decisions
      • 4.3.5Performative disinterest in dismiss decisions
  • 5.Conclusions
  • Notes
  • References
References (45)
References
Beazley, M. B. (2019). A Practical guide to appellate advocacy (5th ed.). Wolters Kluwer.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bednarek, M., & Caple, H. (2012). News discourse. Continuum.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2017). The Discourse of news values: How news organizations create newsworthiness. Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Biel, Ł. (2017). Lexical bundles in EU Law: The impact of translation process on the patterning of legal language. In S. Goźdź-Roszkowski & G. Pontrandolfo (Eds.) Phraseology in legal and institutional settings (pp. 10–26). Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bingham, T. (2011). The Rule of law. Penguin.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Breeze, R. (2013). Lexical bundles across four legal genres. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics, 18(2), 229–253. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Candiotto, L. (2019). The Value of emotions for knowledge. Springer. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Chen, L., & Hu, G. (2020). Surprise markers in applied linguistics research articles: A diachronic perspective. Lingua, 2481, 102992. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cutting, J. (2002). Pragmatics and discourse: A resource book for students. Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Feteris, E. T. (1999). Fundamentals of legal argumentation: A survey of theories on the justification of judicial decisions. Springer Dordrecht. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fillmore, C. (1985). Frames and the semantics of understanding. Quaderni di Semantica, 61, 222–254.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Finegan, E., Lee, B. T., Coulthard, M., Sousa-Silva, R., & May, A. (2021). Legal writing — Attitude and emphasis: Corpus linguistic approaches to “legal language” — Adverbial expression of attitude and emphasis in Supreme Court opinions. In M. Coulthard, A. May, & R. Sousa-Silva (Eds.) The Routledge handbook of forensic linguistics (2nd ed., pp. 48–63). Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Felton Rosulek, L. (2015). Dueling discourses: The construction of reality in closing arguments. Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
The FrameNet Team. (2026). FrameNet. [Online lexical database] [URL]
Garzone, G. E. (2016). Polyphony and dialogism in legal discourse: Focus on syntactic negation. Legal Discourse and Communication, 11, 2–27. [URL]
Goźdź-Roszkowski, S. (2021). Corpus linguistics in legal discourse. International Journal for the Semiotics of Law = Revue Internationale de Sémiotique Juridique, 34(5), 1515–1540. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2024). Language and legal judgments: Evaluation and argument in judicial discourse. Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hyland, K. (2005). Metadiscourse: Exploring interaction in writing. Continuum.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Johnson, A. (2014). ‘Dr Shipman told you that…’: The organising and synthesising power of quotation in judicial summing-up. Language & Communication, 361, 53–67. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Llewellyn, K. N. (2016). The Common law tradition: Deciding appeals. Quid Pro Books.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
MacLeod, N. (2024). Intentionally encouraging or assisting others to commit an offence: The anatomy of a language crime. International Journal for the Semiotics of Law = Revue Internationale de Sémiotique Juridique, 37(2), 677–694. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mazzi, D. (2007). The Construction of argumentation in judicial texts: Combining a genre and a corpus perspective. Argumentation, 21(1), 21–38. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2017). “In Other Words, …”: A corpus-based study of reformulation in judicial discourse. Hermes (Århus, Denmark), 24(46), 11–24. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
McKeown, J. (2021). A corpus-based examination of reflexive metadiscourse in majority and dissent opinions of the U.S. Supreme Court. Journal of Pragmatics, 1861, 224–235. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2022). Stancetaking in the U.S. Supreme Court’s abortion jurisprudence: Epistemic (im)probability and evidential (dis)belief. International Journal of Legal Discourse, 7(2), 323–343. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2024). A contrastive investigation of the performative and descriptive use of surprise frames in judicial opinions of the HKSAR. Journal of Pragmatics, 2321, 41–52. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Muis, K. R., Psaradellis, C., Lajoie, S. P., Di Leo, I., & Chevrier, M. (2015). The role of epistemic emotions in mathematics problem solving. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 421, 172–185. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ngai, J. (2018). “It is Imperative to…”: Importance markers and the construction of newspaper discourse. The Asian Journal of Applied Linguistics, 5(1), 156–169. [URL]
Noordewier, M. K., Gocłowska, M. A., & Eisenberger, N. I. (2024). Shared and unique features of epistemic emotions: Awe, surprise, curiosity, interest, confusion, and boredom. Emotion (Washington, D.C.), 24(4), 1029–1048. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pontrandolfo, G., & Goźdź-Roszkowski, S. (2013). Evaluative patterns in judicial discourse: A corpus-based phraseological perspective on American and Italian criminal judgments. International Journal of Law, Language & Discourse, 3(2), 9–69. [URL]
Posner, R. A. (1995). Overcoming law. Harvard University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rayson, P., & Garside, R. (2000). Comparing corpora using frequency profiling. In A. Kilgarriff & T. Berber Sardinha (Eds.) WCC ’00 Proceedings of the workshop on comparing corpora (pp. 1–6). Association for Computational Linguistics. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Silvia, P. J. (2009). Looking past pleasure: Anger, confusion, disgust, pride, surprise, and other unusual aesthetic emotions. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, 3(1), 48–51. [URL].
Szczyrbak, M. (2016). Say and stancetaking in courtroom talk: A corpus-assisted study. Corpora, 11(2), 143–168. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Tkačuková, T. (2015). A Corpus-assisted study of the discourse marker well as an indicator of judges’ institutional roles in court cases with litigants in person. Corpora, 10(2), 145–170. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Van Dijk, T. (2014). Discourse and knowledge. Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Vogl, E., Pekrun, R., Murayama, K., Loderer, K., & Schubert, S. (2019). Surprise, curiosity, and confusion promote knowledge exploration: Evidence for robust effects of epistemic emotions. Frontiers in Psychology, 101, 2474. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wang, Q. (2022). “The very interesting finding suggests that…”: A cognitive frame-based analysis of interest markers by authors’ geo-academic location in applied linguistics research articles. Frontiers in Psychology, 131, 1020854. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wang, Q., & Hu, G. (2022). What surprises, interests and confuses researchers? A frame-based analysis of knowledge emotion markers in research articles. Lingua, 2791, 103426. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2023a). Expressions of interest in research articles: Geo-academic location and time as influencing factors. Lingua, 2931, 103580. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2023b). Disciplinary and gender-based variations: A frame-based analysis of interest markers in research articles. English for Specific Purposes, 701, 177–191. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2021). Corpus approaches to forensic linguistics: Applying corpus data and techniques in forensic contexts. In M. Coulthard, A. May, & R. Sousa-Silva (Eds.) The Routledge handbook of forensic linguistics (2nd ed., pp. 611–627). Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ye, M., & McKeown, J. (2023). Investigating the targeted use of (dis)agreement in leave to appeal decisions of the HKSAR appellate courts: a corpus assisted discourse analysis. International Journal of Legal Discourse, 8(2), 235–255. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue