General Conclusions

Abstract

In the present book I addressed the question of whether implicatures occur in the legal language, firstly illustrating why the classic Gricean theory is not applicable (without substantial modification) to the description of legal language and proposing a novel approach based on a modification of Andrei Marmor’s “strategic speech.” Subsequently, I provided an analysis of neo-Gricean theories and to what extent they can be employed for describing the mechanisms of legal interpretation. I also discussed the possibility of pragmatic enrichment of legal content as well as the notion of completeness of a legal proposition. Moreover, I argued for an externalist theory of meaning of the legal language. Lastly, I illustrated how the developed theory works in practice, with examples from penal and civil law cases. The present chapter is a summary of the theory I proposed and the conclusions drawn in this book.