ABSTRACT
Fairclough understands a genre as a relatively stable set of conventions that is associated with, and partly enacts, a socially ratified type of activity. Investigating genres can therefore be carried out from two perspectives: from the text itself, with a close linguistic analysis of the language choices made in it, or from the practices in which it is embedded. Legal texts make great use of terminology, often drawing on several different codes. As such texts aim to avoid any possible ambiguity or lack of clarity, their lexis is also characterised by frequent repetitions, and conversely, infrequent use of pro-forms or synonyms. For contemporary analyses of policies and laws, the tradition of analysing legal language continues to be of importance, as it provides a key means of distinguishing what is typical in such texts from what is atypical and therefore of potential interest.
