INTRODUCTION

Preamble

This chapter is divided into six parts. It discusses the background to the study. It also looks at the
statement of the problem with the research questions arising from it. The aim and objectives of
the study, justification of the study and the scope are also captured in this chapter.

Background to the Study

Communication in human social organizations has remained central to successful and

effective interactions. Language choice and style of presentation constitute the most important
resource available in any social context for any meaningful social interaction. Language is a form
of communication. Humans live and work in groups that require sound communication, sharing
information, broadcasting warnings, forming and maintaining relationships (Yule, 2010).
Chomsky (1957) sees language as a set (finite or infinite) of sentences, each finite in length and
constructed out of a finite set of elements. He implies that each sentence has a structure. Human
brain is competent enough to generate a limitless number of utterances from limited set of rules
of a particular language. Human brain is so productive that a child can at any time produce a
sentence that has never been said or heard before.

According to Owen (2006: p.1), language is a socially shared combinations of symbols and rules
in which the combination of rules governs the combination of symbols. He also asserted that it is
a socially acceptable code or conventional systems for delivering concept through the use of
symbols and the combination of desired symbols are governed by the provisions.

Kersaf (2005: p.1), as stated in his work, provides two basic understanding of language. The
first understanding of language is a means of communication between members of the public in
the form of a system of the sound produced by them. Secondly, language is a communication
system that uses symbols vocal speech sound which is arbitrary. Language is important in every
aspect of our lives because it allows people to communicate in ways that enables sharing of
common ideas. And most important function of language is to communicate properly.

Language can be used in different context, which it is language as being spoken and
language as being written. One could state that there are two main uses of language: one is to
inform; the other is to deceive. We use language in many different ways and for many different
purposes. We write and we speak. We work with language, play with language, and earn our
living with language. We court and seduce, buy and sell, insult and praise, all by means of
language. A helpful scheme for analyzing the uses of language involves five broad categories: the
informative, the evocative, the expressive, the evaluative, and the performative (J. L. Austin,
1962).

The study of language is often divided into semantics, pragmatics and syntactic in which
syntactic is the central point to this study. The word “syntax” comes originally from ancient
Greek syntaxis and literally means a putting together” or arrangement. Syntax is the collection of
rules

that govern how words are assembled into meaningful sentences. While these are useful
distinctions in the study of language, language use in the real world. Syntax links names and
actions as a imitation of the order of events in the real world. Syntax has developed differently in
different languages. Increasing complexity of sentences accommodates an increasing need for
more detailed communications. Syntax is the form of language that admits any content. The
content may be literal or fact. The content may be an invention, a fictional story that gains credits
by being inserted into proper syntax. Humans are confused or alarmed by improper syntax, but
will often accept forge contents with little resistance or with demonstrable appreciation.

In linguistic, Syntactic pattern is the syntactical analysis and sentence structure of a

language by rule of syntax which includes the English rank scale such as sentence structure,
clause and phrase etc. Syntactic pattern represents the language specific grammatical features and
how these features are represented in a particular language. The syntactic pattern to be presented
here is in dependency of how a legal language is represented and differs from other language
which reflects in its syntactical sentence analysis structure. However, the syntactic pattern is
formal enough to code the linguistic information correctly and to allow for conversion to some
formalism. This work will look at syntax from the way the language of court judgments is
structured in some of the Nigerian Courts but not from the point of view of what structures is
permissible and which
is not in the language of the lawyers. As Huddleston (1986) has pointed out, within the sentence
we have a much sharper distinction between permissible and impermissible combinations, which
enable us to formulate rules distinguishing what is grammatical from what is not.

Law, just like every other discipline, has its own peculiar language, which may seem not
really known to the majority of the masses. The peculiarity of a legal proceeding or document is
not a recent phenomenon. In fact, it has been a long-established tradition. Perhaps, an observer
can infer and safely, too, conclude that a legal document is not meant for an ordinary audience
but for the “initiated,” which are, by their professional training, coupled with the responsibility of
encoding and decoding the legal document. The age of big data has not only found its way to the
study of language and to the study of law, but it has also found its way to the interdisciplinary
field of legal linguistics. The use of linguistic corpora in legal analysis is growing, both in the
determination of individual cases and in the study of language use that reveals regularities that
are not part of the “official” canon of legal doctrine (Vogel, Hamann & Gauer, 2017). The law is
one of the most important social institutions. Its chief function is to regulate social behavior in an
optimally rational and reasonable manner in a given community. But at the same time it is an
institution which depends on language and whose operations therefore also have a linguistic
dimension. In view of the importance of law in society, it is no surprise that scholars in many
disciplines have taken an interest in legal language, trying to discover its characteristics through
the methodologies of their own special fields (Nvkyu, 2010).

All legal systems develop certain linguistic features that differ from those of ordinary
language. Sometimes these practices differ only slightly, especially when a legal system is
primarily oral or relatively young. At the other extreme, lawyers and judges may develop
language that is entirely different from ordinary speech. Most modern legal regimes fall between
these extremes. Typically, the legal profession uses language that contains a substantial amount
of technical vocabulary and a number of distinct (often archaic) features. As a result, the speech,
and to a greater extent, the texts produced by such legal systems may be difficult for the lay
public to understand, even though they are spoken or written in a variety of ordinary language. It
is clear that legal language is a sublanguage rather than a language distinct from ordinary
English. Moreover, emphasis is laid that this sublanguage is not unitary, but rather is diverse and
fluid in response to different cultural contexts, as revealed by the particular uses of legal English
in India. Nevertheless, the sublanguage
of legal discourse diverges from ordinary English in "far more" ways "than the technical
languages of most other professions. (Tiersma, 2010).

In a general term, a legal language is a formalized language based on logic rules which
differs from the ordinary natural language in vocabulary, morphology, syntax, and semantics, as
well as other linguistic features, aimed to achieve consistency, validity, completeness and
soundness, while keeping the benefits of a human-like language such as intuitive execution,
complete meaning and open upgrade (Wydick, 2005). There are different kinds (genres) of legal
writing: for example, (a) academic legal writing as in law journals, (b) juridical legal writing as in
court judgments, and (c) legislative legal writing as in laws, regulations, contracts, and treaties
(Bhatia 1993). Another variety is the language used by lawyers to communicate with clients
requiring a more "reader-friendly" style of written communication than that used with law
professionals (Goddard, 2010).

Legal language is coded in language, and the processes of the law are mediated through
language. The language of the law is therefore of genuine importance, particularly for people
concerned with addressing language issues and problems in the real world - that is, Applied
Linguists. In addition,the study of legal language used in a courtroom interaction before judgment
deals with the ways how legal meanings are produced and interpreted during the trial (Stygall,
1994; Mooney, 2014). It is also about the ways in which the power relations in the court are
realized and negotiated through the language use (Olsson, 2004). As an example, courtroom
exchanges are observed to look at the primary speaking roles of parties in the court such as
judges, prosecutors, lawyers, etc. According to Danet (1980), the law has two primary functions
in society: ‘the ordering of human relations and the restoration of social order when it breaks
down’. The first function concerns itself with the formulation and codification of rules that
govern human social behavior. In other words, it is the written letter of the law that tells us what
is acceptable or unacceptable as we relate with others.

This research work therefore explores the synthetic pattern of using legal language in the
Nigerian court judgments as language is the tool for conveying information using the two main
divisions of law which is the criminal law and the civil law. The technical, written, and power
laden nature of legal language makes the language of the law notoriously impenetrable for
nonlawyers. The situation is even worse for those who have a low proficiency in the language of
the legal process (Gibbons, 1999). The paper seeks to find out the different syntactic pattern used
in some selected court judgments in Nigeria and to show if the pattern in a judgment is similar to
the pattern in another judgment with regards to syntax.

Statement of the Problem

If there is a sector that demands the attention of every human being, it is the legal sector.
Everybody is involved directly or indirectly in matters pertaining to human rights and
obligations. Every individual desire that his rights be respected. But this becomes
unattainable when the person has no full knowledge of his rights.

The critical role of language in the courtroom has attracted and propelled many linguists to
investigate the nature of legal language in general. Legal documents are not written to intimidate
the non-professionals, but to enlighten everybody on the issues relating to their rights and
obligations. Also, a lot of studies has been done on legal language and court room judgements in
which most of these studies are from the developed countries and it has also been observed that
previous works are mostly on court room interactions which view of such studies addressed are
not seen in Nigeria. Some of the relevant studies on the nature of the language of law include
discourse of lawyers and clients (Maley et al, 1995; Haley, 1997). Discourse of trial Lawyers

(Stygall, 1994), Discourse of courtroom questions (Hale, 1999; Berk-Seligson, 1999; Ridgney,
1999; Farinde, 2008), Language of Jury instructions (Levi, 1993; Jackson, 1995; Tiersma 1995);
Dumas, (2000) and others. Many researchers interested in forensic linguistics have also
investigated the language of courts reflecting, generally, the complexity of legal language and
what makes legal language sound Greek to the non-law professions and cause it to be
incomprehensible but none has really ventured into syntactically analyzing the pattern of legal
language used in the judgments issued by courts of competent jurisdictions. Thus, since scholars
have not been able to find the syntactic problem in Nigeria court judgement, the problem of this
study is to find out the different syntactic pattern used in some selected court judgments in
Nigeria and how the legal language pattern in a judgment is similar to the pattern in another
judgment with regards to syntax
Aim and Objectives

The aim of this study is to closely examine the language of court judgements in Nigeria with the
view to identifying the inherent syntactic analysis and determining the peculiarity of such
syntactic analysis to the genre of court judgement in a kind of logico semantic relation type of
legal language.

The achievement of this research aim will require the pursuit of the following objectives which
are to;

1. Analyze the language of court judgement in terms of sentence structure in

relation to logico semantic relation of clause complex ii. Examine whether the patterns observe
in each judgement are similar (or not) to the normal sentence patterns; iii. Find out what factors
are responsible for the variation in syntactic patterns;

Research Questions

The following research questions were developed to guide the study.

2. What are structural/syntactic patterns in relation to court judgment?

3. Are there similarities and variations of syntactic patterns in different court judgments

using Halliday’s SFG approach?

Justification of the Study

The fact that several studies exist on legal language does not deny the fact that only few
studies have focused on the language of court judgments. The few studies in this field have
mostly studied foreign court judgments and not the Nigerian court judgments. Also, the existing
studies have applied only discourse analysis and semantics. Consequently, linguists have not
been able to investigate the study of syntactic patterns in the language of court judgment
especially in Nigeria to understand the inherent peculiarities.
The purpose of this study is to investigate the assumption that the legal language is different from
the general English language use by people. A study of this type is necessary to be able to
provide useful insight into the use of English in specific contents and with focus on court
judgments, a type of legal language. A study of this type will be useful in the teaching of English
for specific purposes especially as it will provide information on prevalent language use patterns
in the legal profession.

This work will therefore be of great help to upcoming researchers who will like to make research
on something similar to this and those that want to explore more on this not only on legal
language but also language use in other profession.

Scope of Study

It is essential to limit the research scope and problem in order to avoid misunderstanding in
interpreting the findings. This study is limited to “the syntactic patterns in the legal language used
by some selected Honorable Justices of the Nigerian High Courts in their written judgments”.
Although, the language of law, its words, syntactic structure and concepts are closely related to
the legal system, these documents were selected largely due to the fact that they are characterized
by linguistic aberration. For the purpose of this study, the type of court judgement here will also
be limited to the two main divisions of law; the criminal and civil law. A civil case of the national
industrial court of Nigeria in the Akure judicial division before the lordship, Hon justice A.A
Adewemimo, 16th October, 2019. Another civil case of the high court of justice in the Ejigbo
judicial division holden at Ile Ife, before the lordship, Hon justice J.O. Ogunleye, 19th
September,2019 and federal high court Abuja before the lordship, Hon justice Osho Adebiyi.

Also, the criminal case in the federal high court capital territory before the lordship, Hon Justice
U.P Kekemeke, 6th February, 2020. Federal high court capital territory before his lordship, Hon
justice H.B Yusuf and Hon. Justice Abubakar Idris Kutigi. The analysis to be carried out in this
study is a linguistic analysis and not a legal or philosophical one. Also, the study analyses only
the leading judgments of 30 selected court pronouncements from the document.

1. The Concept of Syntax

 Matthew (1982: p.1), says the term syntax is from the ancient Greek syntaxis. meaning
“arrangement” or “setting out together”. it refers to the branch of grammar which deals with the
way words, with or without the appropriate inflections, are arranged to show connections of
meaning without the sentence. According to Hana (2011), Syntax is a part of linguistics that has
to do with the study of sentence structure. It is based on three elements of a sentence: word order,
word agreement, and hierarchical structure of a sentence. If one wants some books and knows
that they are called books, a sentence may be constructed as “Want these I book.” It is not
grammatically correct, and the listener may not understand the message. The words should be
arranged as, “I want these books.” one should also ensure that there is word agreement in a
sentence; subject and verb, determiner and noun, and other words have to agree with one another
Onions (1971), opines that the term “syntax” means “to arrange together” Also, Radford
(1997), adds that syntax is the study of how words are combined together to form phrases and
sentences. It means that syntactic patterns and systems of rules and categories underlay the theory
of sentence formations.

Furthermore, word order is very important in English, because the language is no longer
inflected. That is, individual words do not have endings to show which parts of speech they
represent. Syntax is a tool used in writing proper grammatical sentences.

(Burgess 1968), also assert that term ‘Syntax’ is used to mean the study of the syntactic
properties of a language. It is syntax that gives the words the power to relate to each other in a
sequence to carry meaning.
1. Relationship between Syntax and Grammar

According to Johnson (2020), grammar and syntax are closely related concepts, both in
written and spoken language. The terms are often used interchangeably and each concept has its
own meaning. Syntax is the arrangement of words and phrases in a sentence and grammar
consists of the rules that govern the composition of language. So, the relationship between
grammar and syntax is similar to that of parent and child, with grammar providing the structural
rules that syntax and other concepts must follow.
The relationship between grammar and syntax could be explained as the art of language,
meaning grammar, and how it is arranged, and meaning syntax. Although the term grammar was
present in ancient Latin and Greek cultures, the understanding of grammar as a set of rules
pertaining to syntax did not begin until the 16th century. Earlier before the 16th century, grammar
is applied to learning in general, with syntax covering any type of order or arrangement. So,
syntax and grammar are understood to mean the rules governing proper sentence structure. For
example, the references of a person and themselves, an English phrase such as me and him might
be used. But syntactically, I and he is an acceptable order of words. It makes sense, whether
ordered as me and him or him and me. Rules of English grammar dictate that such phrase should
be worded as him and me, so that both pronouns are objective, with the personal pronoun me
ordered last.

2.7. Theoretical framework

The study will make use of Halliday’s (2004) Systemic Functional Grammar to explain
syntactic pattern of Nigerian court judgements. This theory was first developed by Michael K.
Halliday, an emeritus professor of linguistics at the University of Sydney, Australia in 1987. This
theory revolves around the works of J.R Firth and M.A.K Halliday particularly. The name
‘systemic’ according to Halliday (2003), is not the same thing as ‘systematic’, the term is used
because the fundamental concept in the grammar is that of the system. A system is a set of
options with an entry condition; that is to say, a set of things of which one must be chosen,
together with a statement of the conditions under which the choice is available. What
distinguishes systemic theory is that its basic form of synoptic representation is not syntagmatic
but paradigmatic; the organizing concept is not structure but system (hence the name). Also, the
grammar is based on the notion of choice. The speaker of a language, like a person engaging in
any kind of culturally determined behavior, can be regarded as carrying out, simultaneously and
successively, a number of distinct choices. It is the system that formalizes the notion of choice in
language.
SFG theoretical framework states that there are three modes of meaning and these
modes of meaning fall under the metafunction of language. The term metafunction
is used to avoid the mix up of function with metafunction. He identifies the
metafunctions of language as ideational, interpersonal and textual. The ideational
metafunction is the function for construing human experience. It is the means
by which we make sense of "reality" Halliday divides the ideational into the logical
and the experiential metafunctions. Halliday (1994), Eggins (2004), assert that the
clause complex and simplex comes under logical metafunctions which belongs to
the broader ideational metafunctions. It refers to the relationship that exist between
clauses in a sentence and these relations are of two types, Taxis and logico
semantics. Taxis is divided into two components, parataxis and hypotaxis and the
logico semantic is divided into projection and expansion.