Home | Databases | WorldLII | Search | Feedback Edited Legal Collections Data

"Signs signify" [2019] ELECD 1380; in Broekman, M. Jan (ed), "Rethinking Law and Language" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2019) 102

Book Title: Rethinking Law and Language

Editor(s): Broekman, M. Jan

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

Section: Chapter 4

Section Title: Signs signify

Number of pages: 30

Abstract/Description:

Charles S. Peirce inspired broader interest in the sign as a composite of the law–language relationship. Six domains in which the sign plays a role are indicated: “universe,” “science,” “language,” “communication,” “speech,” and “body–text relations.” The groundwork for legal semiotics is thus in significs as developed at the beginning of the twentieth century. Special attention is given to the Amsterdam Signific Circle, in particular the jurist, writer, philosopher, and politician J.I. de Haan, who held in 1916 the world’s first academic Chair in Legal Significs at Amsterdam University. His emphasis on function and essence of the “word” and his slogan “better language is better law” are analyzed. The Amsterdam mathematician and philosopher Gerrit Mannoury unfolded synthetic views on conceptualization—aspects in connection with the law–language theme were promoted in the same Circle and thus (in retrospect) also contributed to the study of signs and their signifying abilities.