The expression of emotion in legal opinion
What is it about?
The expression of sentiment and of aesthetic and ethic valuation is a recurrent factor in journalistic opinion. However, emotions are not commonly associated to legal discourse, nor has their study been undertaken. With this paper I try to make a go at the subject through the well-known paradigm of Appraisal Theory. Under its umbrella, I compare and contrast two sets of legal op-eds from two prestigious papers in English (The New York Times) and Spanish (El País) to try and see whether there exist patterns of choice in either language that may shed a light on the way in which opinions on legal issues are expressed.
Why is it important?
To my knowledge, no contrastive study has been carried out in the framework of Appraisal theory between the two languages, English and Spanish. Furthermore, no studies are known related to the analysis of legal opinion in any of those languages, or between them. This study is, thus, aimed at filling that void for the benefit of translators and comparative linguists interested in legal discourse.