Understanding Humanistic and Legal Texts: Characteristics and Analysis

Humanistic Texts: General Characteristics

Humanistic texts study issues related to human beings, encompassing thinking, social relations, and human studies. They are distinguished from social sciences, which focus on the societal aspects, and human sciences, which address the individual sphere. Predominant text types in human sciences are expository and argumentative. The typical structure of classical humanistic texts includes an introduction, development, and conclusion. An idea is presented, followed by examples, and then a synthesis explaining the idea.

Linguistic Features of Humanistic Texts

The language of humanistic texts is characterized by the use of jargon, which is specialized terminology. Unlike natural languages, human sciences' language can be vague and open to multiple morphological and semantic interpretations. Syntactically, there are trends similar to scientific language, with a predominance of nominalization. The objective style is denotative and referential, achieved through varied lexicon: technical terms, code syntax, modern languages, xenisms, and acronyms.

Legal Texts

Legal texts encompass judicial and administrative documents. They use specific administrative language. Statutory language and legislative and judicial texts are found in the legal sphere, while diverse administrative organs use administrative texts.

Text Types and Structure

The most characteristic legal text is the instruction, due to its conative function. This dominates texts like laws and judgments, which flow from an authority. Legal texts feature:

• Nominal style to highlight concepts.
• Complex sentence structures.
• Impersonal verb usage for objectivity.
• Abundant gerunds, participles, and infinitives.
• Periphrasis of obligation.
• Third-person instead of first-person.
• Jargon, archaisms, fillers, and acronyms.

Pronouns in Legal Texts

Legal texts utilize various pronouns:

• Unstressed personal pronouns (third person): le, lo, la.
• Stressed personal pronouns: me, te, nos, os, él, ella, ello, ellos, ellas.
• Indirect object pronouns (CI) are replaced by demonstrative pronouns: les.
• Neutral pronouns: esto, eso, aquello.
• Possessive pronouns: mío, tuyo, suyo, nuestro, vuestro.
• Undefined pronouns: nadie, alguien, algo, nada, uno, alguno, ninguno, demás, bastante, cuánto, cuál, otro, poco, mismo.
• Ordinal numerals: primero, segundo.
• Interrogative and exclamatory pronouns: quién, cuál.

Coordinated Sentences

A coordinated sentence has verbs linked by conjunctions (y, e, o, u).

Clauses

Clauses can be:

• Juxtaposed: Linked without conjunctions.
• Causal: Introduced by porque.

Coordinated clauses are marked by punctuation and conjunctions:

• Copulative: ni, y, e.
• Disjunctive: o, u, or bien.
• Adversative: pero, mas, sino, aunque, excepto, sin embargo, no obstante, antes bien.
• Distributive: aquí allá, hoy mañana, unos otros, este aquel, ya ya, bien bien, tan pronto como.
• Explanatory: es decir, esto es, por ejemplo, a saber, o sea.