Dry or picturesque? The use of figurative language in Israeli supreme court verdicts

• Authors: Orly Kayam , Yair Galily
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

The legal language of lawyers and judges is generally dry and factual but an examination of the rulings of Israeli Supreme Court justices shows that at least some of them use very picturesque speech to support their positions. This paper describes the use of figurative language as employed by Israeli Supreme Court justices in their writing of verdicts. Examples of the use of metaphors, metonymy, word play, imagery, oxymorons, parables and allegory are cited and discussed.

Keywords

EN

figurative language; Israeli supreme court; verdicts

• Publisher: Sciendo
• Journal: Human Affairs
• Year: 2014
• Volume: 24
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 269-280

Dates

published

2014-04-01

online

2014-03-29

Contributors

author

Orly Kayam

• Zinman College at the Wingate Institute

author

Yair Galily

• Zinman College at the Wingate Institute

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Identifiers

DOI

10.2478/s13374-014-0225-x