The Metaphorical Imagery in Polish Legal Language: The Polish Civil Code

Sylwia Wojtczak; Iwona Witczak-Plisiecka

doi:10.18778/1731-7533.22.4.03

Authors

Sylwia Wojtczak University of Lodz, Faculty of Law https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6054-0963
Iwona Witczak-Plisiecka University of Lodz, Philological Faculty https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0708-2091

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18778/1731-7533.22.4.03

Keywords:

metaphor, legal language, cognitive linguistics

Abstract

The present paper comments on the use of metaphorical imagery in The Polish Civil Code The theoretical background for analysis is cognitive linguistics in the tradition of researchers such as George Lakoff, Mark Turner, Gilles Fauconnier. It is accepted that language as a system is inherently metaphorical, and that metaphorical images are not just rhetorical devices which help make language more interesting and poetic, but rather constitute mechanisms of cognition, thanks to which human beings can make sense of the world and then refer to it in an efficient way. Metaphoricity in legal context can be found at different levels and may serve various aims. Our main interest is in the basic, mostly frozen metaphors which are inevitable in the law.

Author Biographies

Sylwia Wojtczak, University of Lodz, Faculty of Law

Sylwia Wojtczak is professor of law and head of the Department of Law Policy at the University of Lodz, Poland. Her main interests are in cognitive linguistics aspects of law and in artificial intelligence.
Iwona Witczak-Plisiecka, University of Lodz, Philological Faculty

Iwona Witczak-Plisiecka is a linguist and a professor at the English Philology Department in the University of Law. Her main interests are in sociopragmatics, the nature of meaning in natural language, the semantics-pragmatics interface and performativity. She is also interested in the relation between language and the law and the theory of (specialised) translation.

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