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Research Handbook on Legal Semiotics
This comprehensive Research Handbook explores the wide variety of work conducted in legal semiotics to provide a broad understanding of how the law works through signs and symbols. Demonstrating that law is a strategical system of fluctuating signs, contributors critically analyse the ever-evolving conceptualisations of law and legal discourse.
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Critical Acclaim
Contributors
Contents
More Information
This comprehensive Research Handbook explores the wide variety of work conducted in legal semiotics, providing a thorough understanding of how the law works through signs and symbols. Demonstrating that the law is a strategical system of fluctuating signs, contributors critically analyse the ever-evolving conceptualisations of law and legal discourse.
Bringing together leading international experts, this Research Handbook focuses on the material, everyday forms of law comprised by non-verbal legal semiotics. Contributors conduct culturally nuanced semiotic analyses of the modern world, covering topics from COVID-19, religion, and human rights, to comic books and music. Chapters consider the foundations of semiotics, as well as the philosophy of law, identifying the cross-cultural similarities in how legal semiotics and visual legal semiotics intersect. Ultimately, the Research Handbook demonstrates that the law is in a state of perpetual flux, with many unique dimensions only made visible by semiotic analysis.
The Research Handbook on Legal Semiotics will be an invaluable resource for students and scholars of law, jurisprudence, legal culture, linguistics, and semiotics. It will also be an important guide for legal practitioners seeking to better understand the nuances of the legal system.
Bringing together leading international experts, this Research Handbook focuses on the material, everyday forms of law comprised by non-verbal legal semiotics. Contributors conduct culturally nuanced semiotic analyses of the modern world, covering topics from COVID-19, religion, and human rights, to comic books and music. Chapters consider the foundations of semiotics, as well as the philosophy of law, identifying the cross-cultural similarities in how legal semiotics and visual legal semiotics intersect. Ultimately, the Research Handbook demonstrates that the law is in a state of perpetual flux, with many unique dimensions only made visible by semiotic analysis.
The Research Handbook on Legal Semiotics will be an invaluable resource for students and scholars of law, jurisprudence, legal culture, linguistics, and semiotics. It will also be an important guide for legal practitioners seeking to better understand the nuances of the legal system.
Critical Acclaim
‘Research Handbook on Legal Semiotics stands as an invaluable and influential resource in the realms of legal semiotics, legal studies, semiotics research, and legal linguistics. Its wealth of content, inclusion of renowned scholars, and extensive coverage position make it a potentially enduring interdisciplinary work with significant implications for researchers, students, legal practitioners, and professionals across various fields interested in the intersection of law and semiotics.’
– Le Cheng and Xiuli Liu, International Journal for the Semiotics of Law
‘This volume is an interdisciplinary tour de force. Scholars from around the world insightfully explore diverse signs and symbols of law. For those seeking to understand law in the evolving fullness of lived experience (including its cognitive, affective, social, cultural, and political dimensions) here is the place to begin.’
– Richard K. Sherwin, New York Law School, US
‘This book provides new legal semiotics on the one hand, and fields of a deepened and revisited understanding of rules in law and legal thought formation on the other. It distances itself from traditional ideas, inviting the reader to wander in new dimensions of space, images and perspectives which were hitherto unknown in legal research.’
– Jan M. Broekman, KU Leuven, Belgium
‘Law has not only a language but also a semiotics, a system of signs, texts and meanings that seek to bring order to the relationships among human beings. Never before this volume has an attempt been made to provide an all-encompassing tool for the study of such a system. Anyone working within the perimeter of linguistic, semiotic, and social studies of law will find this volume a distinctly useful starting point and reference.’
– Massimo Leone, University of Turin, Italy
– Le Cheng and Xiuli Liu, International Journal for the Semiotics of Law
‘This volume is an interdisciplinary tour de force. Scholars from around the world insightfully explore diverse signs and symbols of law. For those seeking to understand law in the evolving fullness of lived experience (including its cognitive, affective, social, cultural, and political dimensions) here is the place to begin.’
– Richard K. Sherwin, New York Law School, US
‘This book provides new legal semiotics on the one hand, and fields of a deepened and revisited understanding of rules in law and legal thought formation on the other. It distances itself from traditional ideas, inviting the reader to wander in new dimensions of space, images and perspectives which were hitherto unknown in legal research.’
– Jan M. Broekman, KU Leuven, Belgium
‘Law has not only a language but also a semiotics, a system of signs, texts and meanings that seek to bring order to the relationships among human beings. Never before this volume has an attempt been made to provide an all-encompassing tool for the study of such a system. Anyone working within the perimeter of linguistic, semiotic, and social studies of law will find this volume a distinctly useful starting point and reference.’
– Massimo Leone, University of Turin, Italy
Contributors
Contributors: José Manuel Aroso Linhares, Larry Catá Backer, Kristian Bankov, Martin Belov, Patrícia Branco, John Brigham, Clara Chapdelaine-Feliciati, Angela Condello, Marcel Danesi, Peter Goodrich, Dariusz J. Gwiazdowicz, Nathalie Hauksson-Tresch, Paolo Heritier, Parineet Kaur, Miklós Könczöl, Magdalena Łągiewska, Anita Lam, Sarah Marusek, Aleksandra Matulewska, Rostam J. Neuwirth, Ahmad Pakatchi, Frank S. Ravitch, Mario Ricca, Elisabeth Roy Trudel, Michael Salter, Julia J.A. Shaw, Anita Soboleva, Amy Swiffen, Robbie Sykes, Mark Thomas, Kieran Tranter, Farid Samir Benavides Vanegas, Guilherme Vasconcelos Vilaça, Anne Wagner, Bartosz Wojciechowski, Youping Xu, Wei Yu, Kamil Zeidler, Marek Zirk-Sadowski
Contents
Contents:
Foreword xviii
John Brigham
Preface xxiv
Acknowledgements xxv
Introduction: law as a strategical system of fluctuating signs 1
Anne Wagner and Sarah Marusek
PART I LEGAL SEMIOTICS AS AN ARENA FOR LEGAL THOUGHTS
1 Understanding legal semiotics 11
Paolo Heritier
2 From analytical philosophy of law to legal semiotics 32
Marek Zirk-Sadowski
3 Legal philosophy and the promise(s) of legal semiotics 47
José Manuel Aroso Linhares
4 Legal semiotics, globalization, and governance 61
Larry Catá Backer
5 Legal semiotics and synaesthesia 86
Rostam J. Neuwirth
6 Constitutional semiotics as a post-positivist and post-modern approach to constitution and constitutionalism based on the linguistic, visual and emotional turns 105
Martin Belov
7 Semiotics and the space-time ingredients of legal experience 120
Mario Ricca
8 Narrative identity and human beings’ legal subjectivity 135
Bartosz Wojciechowski
9 Classical rhetoric, legal argumentation and the semiotics of law 146
Miklós Könczöl
10 Legal semiotics and Chinese philosophy 158
Magdalena Łągiewska
PART II CULTURE-BOUND LEGAL SEMIOTICS, THE BACKBONE OF THE LAW
11 Law and religion in the United States and Japan: a comparative semiotic perspective 171
Frank S. Ravitch
12 The view: propertizing the visibility of distance 184
Sarah Marusek and Anne Wagner
13 Semiotic insecurity and fake news law 193
Ahmad Pakatchi
14 Beware of (bad and dangerous) metaphors: remarks made at the intersection of cognitive linguistics and law 209
Angela Condello
15 Semiotics of international law 220
Michael Salter
16 Introducing forensic semiotics in criminal investigations 237
Marcel Danesi
17 Legal semiotics and types of arguments in human rights cases in Russia 254
Anita Soboleva
18 Semiotics and cultural heritage law 267
Kamil Zeidler
19 Semiotics of trademark law and brand intellectual property 278
Kristian Bankov
20 Legal semiotics, culture and femi(ni)cide 289
Farid Samir Benavides Vanegas
21 Sex trafficking of girl children: a legal semiotics study of the Convention on the Rights of the Child 300
Clara Chapdelaine-Feliciati
22 Coloniality, international human rights and legal semiotics from the margins 313
Elisabeth Roy Trudel and Amy Swiffen
PART III VISUAL LEGAL SEMIOTICS AS A FIGURATIVE SIGN-SYSTEM
23 Imaginal law 327
Peter Goodrich
24 The two-sided E-Agora 2.0: demojicracy and demonjicracy 338
Anne Wagner, Wei Yu, and Sarah Marusek
25 Photography, art, crime and law 353
Anita Lam
26 Image and the law – a Peircean approach to Mask Required posters during the COVID-19 pandemic 366
Nathalie Hauksson-Tresch
27 Cars and hate: legal semiotics of automobility and combustion masculinity 376
Kieran Tranter and Sarah Marusek
28 Legal semiotics, signs of colonization, signs of independence in India 394
Parineet Kaur
29 Comics and the law: jurisprudence with a comic face 404
Guilherme Vasconcelos Vilaça and Mark Thomas
30 Legal and social semiotics of environmental challenges 419
Dariusz J. Gwiazdowicz and Aleksandra Matulewska
31 Semiotic (de)construction of judges’ identities in China’s internet courts 433
Youping Xu
32 Legal scenographies and courts: tensions between past and present 447
Patrícia Branco
33 Law, music and semiotics 460
Robbie Sykes and Julia J.A. Shaw
Index 479
Foreword xviii
John Brigham
Preface xxiv
Acknowledgements xxv
Introduction: law as a strategical system of fluctuating signs 1
Anne Wagner and Sarah Marusek
PART I LEGAL SEMIOTICS AS AN ARENA FOR LEGAL THOUGHTS
1 Understanding legal semiotics 11
Paolo Heritier
2 From analytical philosophy of law to legal semiotics 32
Marek Zirk-Sadowski
3 Legal philosophy and the promise(s) of legal semiotics 47
José Manuel Aroso Linhares
4 Legal semiotics, globalization, and governance 61
Larry Catá Backer
5 Legal semiotics and synaesthesia 86
Rostam J. Neuwirth
6 Constitutional semiotics as a post-positivist and post-modern approach to constitution and constitutionalism based on the linguistic, visual and emotional turns 105
Martin Belov
7 Semiotics and the space-time ingredients of legal experience 120
Mario Ricca
8 Narrative identity and human beings’ legal subjectivity 135
Bartosz Wojciechowski
9 Classical rhetoric, legal argumentation and the semiotics of law 146
Miklós Könczöl
10 Legal semiotics and Chinese philosophy 158
Magdalena Łągiewska
PART II CULTURE-BOUND LEGAL SEMIOTICS, THE BACKBONE OF THE LAW
11 Law and religion in the United States and Japan: a comparative semiotic perspective 171
Frank S. Ravitch
12 The view: propertizing the visibility of distance 184
Sarah Marusek and Anne Wagner
13 Semiotic insecurity and fake news law 193
Ahmad Pakatchi
14 Beware of (bad and dangerous) metaphors: remarks made at the intersection of cognitive linguistics and law 209
Angela Condello
15 Semiotics of international law 220
Michael Salter
16 Introducing forensic semiotics in criminal investigations 237
Marcel Danesi
17 Legal semiotics and types of arguments in human rights cases in Russia 254
Anita Soboleva
18 Semiotics and cultural heritage law 267
Kamil Zeidler
19 Semiotics of trademark law and brand intellectual property 278
Kristian Bankov
20 Legal semiotics, culture and femi(ni)cide 289
Farid Samir Benavides Vanegas
21 Sex trafficking of girl children: a legal semiotics study of the Convention on the Rights of the Child 300
Clara Chapdelaine-Feliciati
22 Coloniality, international human rights and legal semiotics from the margins 313
Elisabeth Roy Trudel and Amy Swiffen
PART III VISUAL LEGAL SEMIOTICS AS A FIGURATIVE SIGN-SYSTEM
23 Imaginal law 327
Peter Goodrich
24 The two-sided E-Agora 2.0: demojicracy and demonjicracy 338
Anne Wagner, Wei Yu, and Sarah Marusek
25 Photography, art, crime and law 353
Anita Lam
26 Image and the law – a Peircean approach to Mask Required posters during the COVID-19 pandemic 366
Nathalie Hauksson-Tresch
27 Cars and hate: legal semiotics of automobility and combustion masculinity 376
Kieran Tranter and Sarah Marusek
28 Legal semiotics, signs of colonization, signs of independence in India 394
Parineet Kaur
29 Comics and the law: jurisprudence with a comic face 404
Guilherme Vasconcelos Vilaça and Mark Thomas
30 Legal and social semiotics of environmental challenges 419
Dariusz J. Gwiazdowicz and Aleksandra Matulewska
31 Semiotic (de)construction of judges’ identities in China’s internet courts 433
Youping Xu
32 Legal scenographies and courts: tensions between past and present 447
Patrícia Branco
33 Law, music and semiotics 460
Robbie Sykes and Julia J.A. Shaw
Index 479
