ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on value-based lexis and ascriptions of value accomplished without overt indications of subjectivity or stancetaking. It proposes to make a distinction between evaluative language used for discourse about arguments by assessing argumentative propositions and indicating judicial stances and evaluative language operationalized as value-based lexis which is constitutive of arguments. The latter is operationalized as lexemes indicating major argumentative premises (topoi), values and principles. The chapter demonstrates how this type of evaluative language provides useful insights into judicial reasoning based on value judgment. In so doing, the chapter analyses two cases based on value judgment concerning a conflict between the right to life and the right to liberty and bodily integrity. One of the cases was heard by the US Supreme Court Dobbs (2022) and the other by the Constitutional Tribunal of Poland (ref. K 1/20).
