Abstract

The aim of this article is to show that the role of legal terminology in juridical discourse can adequately be determined in a framework of a "juridical textwork" model only. This implies to analyse their role under pragmatic and intertextual aspects. lt will be contended that neither semantics nor the wording of the law can be employed as a starting point for an adequate interpretation of legal language in public discourse. Of crucial importance is rather the question of how the legal text and social reality can combine to constitute the legal norm (which is more than just the legal text). This is illustrated with the example of German court decisions on the issue of sit-ins that were organised by the peace movement in the l970s and l980s to block the access to American army bases. lt will be demonstrated that in the process of putting the coercion law in concrete normative terms through different courts, specific legal terms are semanticly modified and adjusted to specific language use, hence constituting "semantic battles" and linguistic norm conflicts in the juridical discourse.