ABSTRACT
This chapter explores important kind of linguistic variation in legal discourse: variation by text type, or genre. It outlines the concept of genre and illustrates the most common legal text types. The chapter analyses how genres in law have developed historically, taking the example of the law report. It also analyses generic features of a statute. The chapter summarizes some detailed empirical research into what is found to be a hybrid legal genre: that of jury trial. It discusses the concept of register as stylistic variation that applies across legal text types. Consider the interaction between genre and register in a will. Genre is an important concept in relation to legal language. Genre is particularly important in relation to legal text types because legal systems function through a hierarchy of authorities. Analysing genre is a process of checking for strategic markers of structure and purpose. This is because genre is to do with how things get done linguistically.
