ABSTRACT
This chapter analyzes arbitration awards written in Italian to point out the presence of instances of typical features of Italian legal discourse, which could thus furnish evidence for the process of judicialization of Italian arbitration discourse. The changes in arbitration procedures pointed out above denoting greater and greater influence of litigation practice and discourse have also taken place in the Italian context. Indeed, the recent reform of the Italian Arbitration Law has increased the risk of making arbitration too similar to civil proceedings as they treat arbitrators in a manner comparable to State judges. As arbitration was conceived as an alternative way to solve disputes avoiding the recourse to lawyers and courts, one would expect the texts of the awards to be written in a language which is more ordinary discourse than legal discourse. A comparison between court judgments and arbitration awards also shows great similarities from a syntactic point of view.
