Evaluative language

This chapter demonstrates how the use and role of evaluative language can be described more systematically by adopting the pragma-dialectical approach to legal justification (Feteris 2017). It applies the four-stage ideal model of critical discussion (IM) as a heuristic tool to identify relevant points within an argumentative discussion at which argumentation and standpoints are staged and which contribute to the resolution of a difference of opinion. The chapter first maps the four stages of the critical discussion model onto the different rhetorically oriented parts of justifications given by the Constitutional Tribunal of Poland. It then applies the IM to compare argumentation and the evaluative language in the unique and specific contexts of two cases heard by the Constitutional Tribunal of Poland (K52/13 2014) and the US Supreme Court (Lukumi Babalu (1992). Apart from enabling functional characterization of evaluative language, this chapter shows evaluation as a discursive and argumentative practice that can be compared across cases heard in different institutional contexts. Evaluative language is interpreted also in light of ‘strategic manoeuvring’ (Eemeren 1999), i.e., the overall strategy adopted by judges who ensure that their argumentation is both rhetorically effective and is accepted as reasonable.