Chinese Law

Studying Chinese law from a linguistic and communicative perspective, this book examines meaning and language in Chinese law. Taking a cross-cultural approach, the book applies major Western philosophical thought to Chinese law, in particular the ideas concerning language and communication by such major thinkers as Peirce, Whorf, Gadamer, Habermas, Austin and Searle.

Deborah Cao is Senior Lecturer at the School of Languages and Linguistics, and also at the Socio-Legal Research Centre, Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia.

Contents: Introduction; What the Chinese said about law; Fazhi as rule of/by law; 'Ought to' as a legal performative; Rights talk in Chinese; Chinese law and imprecise language; Doing things with words in the constitution; Chinese lawmaking as a communicative act; Translating law over space and time; Last words; Appendix; Bibliography; Index.