Linguistic and legal vagueness in EU directives harmonising protection for refugees and displaced persons

This chapter is included in a volume which is part of a national research project on Tension and Change in English Domain-specific Genres supported by the Italian Ministry of Education (COFIN Grant No. 2007JCY9Y9) and reflects the latest work in the linguistic and legal aspects of normative texts across languages (English, Danish, French, Italian, Spanish) and law systems. The main aim of this contribution is to investigate vagueness in EU Directives harmonising Member States’ efforts to grant refugees and displaced persons’ civil and human rights. The main focus is on linguistic and legal vagueness in the genre of directives as normative texts and on ideological implications underlying the EU’s attitude in granting specific rights to migrants. The methodological approach adopted in this chapter includes studies on vagueness in normative texts (Endicott 2001; Bhatia et al. 2005; Engberg/Heller 2008), on the semantics of adjectives (Pinkal 1995; Fjeld 2005), on legal discourse and ideology (Fairclough 1989, 1992, 1995; van Dijk 2003; Tiersma 1993; Antelmi 2007). The chapter develops an analysis of ‘vagueness carriers’ (adjectives, definitions and time expressions) used in relations to migrants and migrants’ rights and points to identifying a role for vagueness for and within the harmonisation process of immigration policies.