Metaphors we judge by

a corpus-based study of metaphor use in English legal discourse

Abstract

Metaphors are an all-pervasive feature of legal language that reflects and shapes the perception, interpretation and application of the law across jurisdictions. The aim of this study is to map and understand better the cognitive structure and general use of metaphors in legal discourse with special focus on the genre of judgments of the European Court of Justice. To this end, the Eur-Lex judgments corpus has been scrutinized by using the corpus-based methods and the Sketch Engine corpus query tool for determining the most frequently used conceptual metaphors for six target domains: LAW, COURT, RIGHTS, DISCRIMINATION, and COMPANY. Along with unearthing the most typically used metaphoric conceptualizations for the target domains, the data suggest that the analyzed metaphors are not incidental, isolated, mental conceptualizations, but rather part of a conceptual cluster forming a variety relations.  Additionally, some implications have been drawn for teaching legal English by advocating the introduction of metaphors while illustrating the use of corpus-based methodology for the development of effective evidence-based authentic ESP teaching materials to foster metaphoric competence, an area surprisingly neglected in legal English textbooks.