This book proposes a novel descriptive theory that unveils the linguistic mechanisms lurking
behind judicial decisions. It offers a comprehensive account of the ongoing debate as well as
a novel solution to the problem of understanding legal pragmatics. Linguistic pragmatics is
based on a theory created by Paul Grice who observed that people usually convey more than just
the amalgam of the meaning of the words they use. He labeled this surplus of meaning a
¿conversational implicature.¿ This book addresses 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 it
analyzes neo-Gricean theories and their limited use for describing the mechanisms of legal
interpretation and discusses the possibility of pragmatic enrichment of legal content as well
as the notion of completeness of a legal proposition. Lastly it illustrates how the developed
theory works in practice with examples from penal and civil law cases. The book is helpful to
legal practitioners since it provides insights into the reasons for and linguistic mechanisms
behind courts¿ decisions but also to philosophers of law philosophers of language linguists
and non-experts wishing to better understand the mechanisms of legal decision making.
