12/26/2023 0 Comments Personal lexicon definition![]() The meaning that a speaker or author intended to convey to a listener or reader is what Grice calls "speaker's meaning." And Grice developed a very precise and illuminating theory. As always, the Lexicon is aimed at law students, especially first year law students, with an interest in legal theory. This entry in the Lexicon provides a basic introduction to Grice's ideas. A key component of Grice's theory is the distinction between "speaker's meaning" and "sentence meaning." Although most lawyers have never heard of Grice, every lawyer has an intuitive grasp of the difference between literal meaning (the bare meaning of the words as combined by syntax and punctuation) and the meaning that a speaker or author intended to convey in context. One such theory was developed by the philosopher Paul Grice. When there is an argument about what a statute means, it may be helpful to turn to theoretical linguistics and the philosophy of language for an a theory of communication. With this distinction in mind, we can ask the question, "How do we figure out the meaning of a legal text?" In some cases, we can tell what the statute unambiguously means without asking the "how" question. ![]() Thus, statutory interpretation aims to recover the meaning of the words and phrases of a statute in context, whereas statutory construction provides the legal norms that courts will use to apply the text to the facts of a particular case. In a previous Legal Theory Lexicon entry, a distinction was made between "interpretation" and "construction." Although we could use other words to express the distinction, it expresses an important conceptual difference between two activities: (1) discovering the "meaning" of a legal text, and (2) determining the legal effect given to the text. Law students soon learn that the interpretation of legal texts is one of the most important things that lawyers and judges do.
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