Cover not available

In:Corpus-based Research on Variation in English Legal Discourse
Edited by Teresa Fanego and Paula Rodríguez-Puente
[Studies in Corpus Linguistics 91] 2019
► pp. 51–78

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

Chapter 3
Conditionals in spoken courtroom and parliamentary discourse in English, French, and Spanish

A contrastive analysis

 | University of Santiago de Compostela
Published online: 6 February 2019
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/scl.91.03las
This chapter explores if-conditionals in English, French and Spanish legal discourse, responding to the scarcity of cross-linguistic studies on conditionals in this genre. In particular, I examine conditionals in courtroom and parliamentary discourse on the basis of corpus evidence from various sources, proposing a cognitive-functional approach that looks at both prototypical and less prototypical uses of conditionality. The findings from the corpus analysis indicate that conditionals in legal discourse are primarily used to express canonical conditions but also function, to a lesser extent, as interpersonal and textual devices. Results also suggest that modal verbs, highly present in these constructions, have different uses depending on the function expressed by the clause.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Conditionals defined
  • 3.Conditionals in legal discourse
  • 4.Corpora and methodology
  • 5.Results and discussion
    • 5.1Conditionals in the courtroom
      • 5.1.1Frequency
      • 5.1.2Metafunction
      • 5.1.3Semantic type of condition
      • 5.1.4Modal verb in the apodosis
      • 5.1.5Markedness of the apodosis
    • 5.2Conditionals in parliamentary discourse
      • 5.2.1Frequency
      • 5.2.2Metafunctions
      • 5.2.3Semantic type of condition
      • 5.2.4Modal verb in the apodosis
      • 5.2.5Markedness of the apodosis
  • 6.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
References (66)
References
Aarts, Bas, Wallis, Sean & Bowie, Jill. 2014. Profiling the English verb phrase over time: Modal patterns. In Developments in English: Expanding Electronic Evidence, Irma Taavitsainen, Merja Kytö, Claudia Claridge & Jeremy Smith (eds), 48–76. Cambridge: CUP. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ädel, Annelie. 2010. How to use corpus linguistics in the study of political discourse. In The Routledge Handbook of Corpus Linguistics, Anne O'Keeffe & Michael McCarthy (eds), 591–604. London: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Athanasiadou, Angeliki & Dirven, René. 1997. On Conditionals Again [Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 143]. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Arrivé, Michel, Gadet, Françoise & Galmiche, Michel. 1986. La Grammaire d'aujourd'hui: Guide Alphabétique de la Linguistique Française. Paris: Flammarion.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Berezowski, Leszek. 2011. Curious legal conditionals. Research in Language 9(1): 187–197. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Biber, Douglas, Johansson, Stig, Leech, Geoffrey, Conrad, Susan & Finegan, Edward. 1999. Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English. Harlow: Pearson Education.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Carpuat, Marine. 2014. Mixed language and code-switching in the Canadian Hansard. In Proceedings of the First Workshop on Computational Approaches to Code-Switching, 107–115. <[URL]> Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Carter-Thomas, Shirley & Rowley-Jolivet, Elizabeth. 2008. If-conditionals in medical discourse: From theory to disciplinary practice. Journal of English for Academic Purposes 7: 191–205. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Chafe, Wallace & Nichols, Johanna. 1986. Evidentiality: The Linguistic Coding of Epistemology. Norwood NJ: Ablex.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Couper-Kuhlen, Elizabeth & Kortmann, Bernd. (eds). 2000. Cause, Condition, Concession, Contrast: Cognitive and Discourse Perspectives. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cresti, Emanuela & Moneglia, Massimo. (eds). 2005. C-ORAL-ROM: Integrated Reference Corpora for Spoken Romance Languages [Studies in Corpus Linguistics 15]. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Crystal, David & Davy, Derek. 1969. Investigating English Style. London: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dancygier, Barbara & Sweetser, Eve. 1997. Then in conditional constructions. Cognitive Linguistics 8(2): 109–136. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2000. Constructions with ‘if’, ‘since’, and ‘because’: Causality, epistemic stance, and clause order. In Cause, Condition, Concession, Contrast: Cognitive and Discourse Perspectives, Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen & Bernd Kortmann (eds), 111–142. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2005. Mental Spaces in Grammar: Conditional Constructions. Cambridge: CUP. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Declerck, Renaat & Reed, Susan. 2001. Conditionals: A Comprehensive Empirical Analysis. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Estella de Noriega, Antonio. 2016. Rationality and counterfactual legal analysis. The Italian Law Journal 2(1): 105–129.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Facchinetti, Roberta. 2001. Conditional constructions in Modern English legal texts. In Modality in Specialized Texts, Maurizio Gotti & Marina Dossena (eds), 133–150. Bern: Peter Lang.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fanego, Teresa, Rodríguez-Puente, Paula, López-Couso, María José, Méndez-Naya, Belén, Núñez-Pertejo, Paloma, Blanco-García, Cristina & Tamaredo, Iván. 2017. The Corpus of Historical English Law Reports 1535–1999 (CHELAR): A resource for analysing the development of English legal discourse. ICAME Journal 41: 53–82. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Frade, Celina. 2004. Condicionalidade no Contrato Internacional em Inglês. PhD dissertation, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2012. The power of legal conditionals in international contracts. In Transparency, Power and Control: Perspectives on Legal Communication, Vijay K. Bhatia, Christoph A. Hafner, Lindsay Miller & Anne Wagner (eds), 31–50. London: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gabrielatos, Costas. 2010. A Corpus-Based Examination of English if-Conditionals through the Lens of Modality: Nature and Types. PhD dissertation, Lancaster University.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Garofalo, Giovanni. 2006. I connettivi condizionali complessi nei testi normativi spagnoli. Rivista Internazionale di Tecnica della Traduzione 9: 75–97.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gotti, Maurizio. 2003. Shall and will in contemporary English: A comparison with past uses. In Modality in Contemporary English, Roberta Facchinetti, Manfred Krug & Frank Palmer (eds), 267–300. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Halliday, Michael A. K. & Matthiessen, Christian. 2014. Halliday’s Introduction to Functional Grammar. London: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Harris, Martin B. 1986a. The historical development of conditional sentences in Romance. Romance Philology 39: 405–436.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Harris, Martin B. 1986b. The historical development of si-clauses in Romance. In On Conditionals, Elizabeth Closs Traugott, Alice ter Meulen, Judy Snitzer Reilly & Charles A. Ferguson (eds), 265–284. Cambridge: CUP. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Huddleston, Rodney & Pullum, Geoffrey K. et al. 2002. The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language. Cambridge: CUP. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hunston, Susan. 2011. Corpus Approaches to Evaluation: Phraseology and Evaluative Language. London: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hunston, Susan & Thompson, Geoffrey. 2000. Evaluation in Text: Authorial Stance and the Construction of Discourse. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hyland, Ken. 1998. Hedging in Scientific Research Articles [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 54]. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lastres-López, Cristina. 2017. Conditional clauses in functional-cognitive space: Evidence from English, Spanish and French. Paper presented at the 50th Annual Meeting of the Societas Linguistica Europaea. Zurich, 10–13 September.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2018. If-insubordination in spoken British English: Syntactic and pragmatic properties. Language Sciences 66: 42–59. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Leech, Geoffrey. 2003. Modality on the move: The English modal auxiliaries 1961–1992. In Modality in Contemporary English, Roberta Facchinetti, Manfred Krug & Frank Palmer (eds), 223–240. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Leech, Geoffrey & Svartvik, Jan. 1975. A Communicative Grammar of English. Harlow: Longman.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lehto, Anu. 2012. Development of subordination in Early Modern English legal discourse. In Proceedings of the Corpus Linguistics 2011 Conference. <[URL]> Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
López-Couso, María José & Méndez-Naya, Belén. 2015. Secondary grammaticalization in clause combining: From adverbial subordination to complementation in English. Language Sciences 47: 188–198. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Materni, Mike C. 2014. Rebooting the discourse on causation in the criminal law. A pragmatic (and imperfect) approach. Criminal Law Bulletin 50(6): 1–31.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mazzi, Davide. 2010. The centrality of counterfactual conditionals in House of Lords and US Supreme Court Judgments. In Legal Discourse across Languages and Cultures, Maurizio Gotti & Christopher Williams (eds), 243–262. Bern: Peter Lang.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2013. “If it be the case that the appellants are under such an obligation…”: A comparative study of conditionals in English legal discourse. In Realizzazioni Testuali Ibride in Contesto Europeo. Lingue dell'UE e Lingue Nazionali a Confronto, Stefano Ondelli (ed), 27–40. Trieste: EUT Edizioni Università di Trieste.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Montolío Durán, Estrella. 2000. Les estructures condicionals [si p, q] i la seva rellevància en les formulacions legislatives, administratives i jurídiques. Revista de Llengua i Dret 34: 67–91.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2010. Discourse, grammar and professional discourse analysis: The function of conditional structures in legal writing. In Researching Language and the Law: Textual Features and Translation Issues, Davide Simone Giannoni & Celina Frade (eds), 19–48. Bern: Peter Lang.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Nelson, Gerald, Wallis, Sean & Aarts, Bas. 2002. Exploring Natural Language: Working with the British Component of the International Corpus of English [Varieties of English around the World G29]. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Nivelle, Nele & William Van Belle. 2007. The use of counterfactual conditionals expressing causation in legal discourse. In Proceedings of the Sixth Conference of the International Society for the Study of Argumentation, 989–996. Amsterdam: SicSat.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Perry, Stephen R. 2003. Harm, history and counterfactuals. San Diego Law Review 40: 1283–1313.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Puente-Castelo, Luis Miguel. 2016. Conditional constructions and their uses in eighteenth-century philosophy and life sciences texts. In Input a Word, Analyze the World: Selected Approaches to Corpus Linguistics, Francisco Alonso Almeida, Ivalla Ortega Barrera, Elena Quintana Toledo & Margarita E. Sánchez Cuervo (eds), 241–256. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Quirk, Randolph, Greenbaum, Sidney, Leech, Geoffrey & Svartvik, Jan. 1985. A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language. Harlow: Longman.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Real Academia Española. 2010. Nueva Gramática de la Lengua Española. Manual. Madrid: Espasa.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Scotto di Carlo, Giuseppina. 2015. Diachronic and Synchronic Aspects of Legal English: Past, Present, and Possible Future of Legal English. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Spellman, Barbara A. & Kincannon, Alexandra. 2001. The relation between counterfactual (“but for”) and causal reasoning: Experimental findings and implications for jurors’ decisions. Law and Contemporary Problems 64(4): 241–264. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Strassfeld, Robert N. 1982. If…Counterfactuals in the law. The George Washington Law Review 60: 339–416.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Svensson, Maria. 2012. Conditions for concession and contrast: Concessive and adversative use of si “if” in French in European Union Parliamentary Debates. In Parliamentary Discourses across Cultures: Interdisciplinary Approaches, Liliana Ionescu-Ruxandoiu (ed), 105–116. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sweetser, Eve. 1990. From Etymology to Pragmatics: Metaphorical and Cultural Aspects of Semantic Structure. Cambridge: CUP. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Tiersma, Peter M. 1999. Legal Language. Chicago IL: The University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Traugott, Elizabeth Closs, ter Meulen, Alice, Reilly, Judy Snitzer, & Ferguson, Charles A. 1986. On Conditionals. Cambridge: CUP. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Trosborg, Anna. 1997. Rhetorical Strategies in Legal Language. Discourse Analysis of Statutes and Contracts. Tübingen: Gunter Narr.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
van Dijk, Teun A. 1997. What is political discourse analysis? Belgian Journal of Linguistics 11: 11–52. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Vass Ward, Holly. 2015. A Comparative Analysis of Hedging in a Corpus of two Written Legal Discourse Genres. PhD dissertation, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Visconti, Jacqueline. 2000a. I Connettivi Condizionali Complessi in Italiano e Inglese. Uno Studio Contrastivo. Alessandria: Edizioni dell’Orso.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2000b. A comparative glossary of conditionals in legal language: English, Italian, German, French. Marie Curie Fellowships Annals 1: 81–86.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Warchal, Krystyna. 2010. Moulding interpersonal relations through conditional clauses: Consensus-building strategies in written academic discourse. Journal of English for Academic Purposes 9: 140–150. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wierzbicka, Anna. 1997. Conditionals and counterfactuals: Conceptual primitives and linguistic universals. In Athanasiadou & Dirven (eds), 15–60.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Williams, Christopher. 2013. Changes in the verb phrase in legislative language in English. In The Verb Phrase in English: Investigating Recent Language Change with Corpora, Bas Aarts, Joanne Close, Geoffrey Leech & Sean Wallis (eds), 353–371. Cambridge: CUP. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (4)

Cited by four other publications

Lastres-López, Cristina
2023. Morphosyntactic and pragmatic variation in conditional constructions in English and Spanish parliamentary discourse. In Exploring Language and Society with Big Data [Studies in Corpus Linguistics, 111], ► pp. 308 ff. DOI logo
Lin, Xiaowen, Muhammad Afzaal & Hessah Saleh Aldayel
2023. Syntactic complexity in legal translated texts and the use of plain English: a corpus-based study. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications 10:1 DOI logo
Gabrielatos, Costas
2021.  If-conditionals: Corpus-based classification and frequency distribution. ICAME Journal 45:1 ► pp. 87 ff. DOI logo
Liu, Kanglong & Linqing Zhu
2021. An Investigation of Norms in Legal Translation: A Corpus-Based Study of Conditional Connectives in Company Law. In Diverse Voices in Chinese Translation and Interpreting [New Frontiers in Translation Studies, ], ► pp. 361 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 1 december 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue