Pragmatic relevance/strenght of lexico-grammar in EU legal documents

The present study focuses on the communicative relevance of lexical choices in the documents of the European Union Committee of the Regions (CoR) and of other related bodies within a pragmalinguistic perspective. The function of the Committee of the Regions is to issue opinions on proposals for Community legislation which are closest to the citizen interests – education, youth, culture, health. It is thus a voice at the heart of the EU which aims at increasing the participation of European regions in community life. Our corpus consists in 100 documents (Proposals and Opinions) whose lexico-grammatical aspects and communicative/ rhetorical strategies are here investigated. Our hypothesis is that such texts aim at creating a holistic we to construe a common ground of interests, within the constraints of legal intercourses, shared by both the sender and the receiver of the messages. Frequently occurring lexical items are: welcome, ensure, strengthen, aid. To stress urgency, generate empathy, emphasize needs and endorse value-positions are the recognizable perlocutionary effects of such semantic/pragmatic choices. Tools for analysis were taken from the domain of pragmalinguistics, from Evaluative/Appraisal Frameworks and, also, from social sciences. Particularly relevant appeared the notion of ‘advocacy’ (i.e., when researchers are asked to use their expertise to defend the subjects’ interests in healthcare, education, political rights, and cultural autonomy). This study will provide both qualitative and quantitative data to support our hypothesis, and will offer suggestions for further research.