Understanding and researching legal genres and language within the maritime domain

Abstract

This chapter attempts to contribute to the scant literature on legal genres and language in maritime settings. It begins with an introduction to maritime legal language, provides a definition of maritime English and its main branches, discusses the bodies of law in the maritime domain, and explains the role of English as the international language for communication in the shipping industry and maritime disputes. The second section focuses on the notion of genres and genre networks in the maritime legal domain, reviews the extant literature on the study of genres and language at the macro- and micro-levels, and puts forward a classification of written maritime legal genres for further research. The next section illustrates the investigation of genres at the micro-level and explores the presence and function of directive utterances in two relevant international conventions laid down by the International Maritime Organization. Finally, concluding remarks discuss opportunities and limitations for conducting maritime legal language research through the lens of a genre-based approach.