Legal Expertise as a Cultural Identity Trait

By comparing articles authored by native and non-native speakers, this chapter discusses how experts of Common Law and Civil Law express their identity and stance. The main focus will be on whether and how the different philosophies behind the two legal systems – i.e., the adversarial approach vs. the inquisitorial approach, the principle of precedent vs. the recourse to the civil code, the primacy of witness examination vs. the primacy of written norms and abstract principles, the emphasis on precision and clarity vs. the recourse to a formal register and a specialized vocabulary – influence authorial styles and the choice of argumentative-persuasive strategies, especially in terms of data organization, use of quotations and interactional style (Pascual 2006). The analysis will be based on a sub-corpus of CADIS (Corpus of Academic Discourse, compiled by the University of Bergamo) consisting of 100 articles – 50 authored by native speakers and 50 by non-native speakers of English – taken from major publications in legal studies, namely, the European Journal of International Law, the Yale Law Journal, the Harvard Law Review, the Harvard International Law Journal, the European Law Journal, the International Review of Law and Economics.