Communication and Legal Interpretation

Is reading a statute or constitutional provision the same act as reading an email or a text message? This book analyses and develops legal communicative theories which answer in the affirmative - language, not morality or fairness, is the primary consideration for legal interpretation.

According to these theories, the aim of legal interpretation is to focus on what was communicated through language. Despite what seems like a simple picture, it is hard to pin down what a legal communicative theory is; even its proponents think that some normative reasoning is necessary when interpreting vague or indeterminate provisions. Opponents of legal communicative theories claim normativity is always present regardless of vagueness or linguistic indeterminacy. Both sides agree that theories of legal interpretation have to be justified by rich normative arguments. Where should a legal communicative theorist draw the line between communication and normativity?

The book shows how we can construct legal communicative theories in a way that maintains the communicative nature of such theories whilst acknowledging that some normative reasoning is inevitable. By working out relevant criteria for legal communicative theories, the book additionally presents a sophisticated account of intentionalism and original intent grounded in the philosophy of language and linguistics: application subjectivism.