SFL and corpus methods: a test case from international war law

Annabelle Lukin

Department of Linguistics

Macquarie University

Corpus linguistics has been a rising star in linguistics over the last two decades, with increasing computational resources and greater capacity to collect and host data for research purposes. Because of its emphasis on natural linguistic data, and its general acceptance of the principle of register, CL is a natural ally to scholars working with Halliday’s systemic functional linguistic theory. This paper seeks to illustrate the intersection of corpus linguistics and SFL through an examination of key contextual, semantic, and lexicogrammatical features of the texts entailed in the legal regulation of geopolitical violence, namely international treaties (such as the Geneva Conventions, or the Rome Statute) (Lukin and Araújo e Castro, 2022). This paper is part of an ongoing project examining the contradictions in international war law, between its capacity to both proscribe and legitimize geopolitical violence (Jocknick & Normand, 1994; Lukin 2020; Lukin & Garcia, in press; Mégret, 2018). Using this case study, the paper will argue for why SFL needs CL, and why CL needs SFL.

Jochnick, C. A., & Normand, R. 1994. The legitimation of violence: A critical history of the laws of war. Harvard International Law Journal, 35(1). 49-95.

Lukin, A. 2020. How international law makes violence legal: a case study of the Rome Statute.

Language, Context and Text: The Social Semiotics Forum, 2(1). 91-120. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1075/langct.00022.luk

Lukin, A., & Araújo e Castro, R. 2022. The Macquarie Laws of War Corpus (MQLWC): Design, Construction and Use. International Journal for the Semiotics of Law – Revue internationale de Sémiotique juridique, 35. 2167-2186.

Lukin, A., & Garcia, A. in press. The International Laws of War: Linguistic Analysis from the Perspectives of Register, Corpus and Grammatical Patterning. Journal of International Humanitarian Legal Studies.

Mégret, F. 2018. The laws of war and the structure of masculine power. Melbourne International Law Journal, 19(1). 200-226.