A Pragmatic Analysis of Modal Verbs in Chinese Legislative Texts Based on Parallel Corpora

Abstract

Illocutionary acts which produce legal effects are referred to as legal speech acts, serving to realize the normative function of the law. Modal verbs are the most commonly used regulative means of legal speech acts in legislative texts. From the perspective of speech act theory, this paper analyzes the modal verbs in Chinese legislative texts by investigating parallel corpora in PCCLD, aiming at revealing the legal speech acts and functions they indicate. The study found that these modal verbs indicated obligatory acts with illocutionary forces of imposing obligations, prohibitive acts with illocutionary forces of stating prohibitions and facultative acts with illocutionary forces of granting rights. On this basis, this paper provides suggestions for the translation of modal verbs in Chinese legislative texts.