APPLICATION OF A THEORETICAL APPROACH TO THE DISCOURSE STUDY OF LEGAL SENTENCES: A CASE STUDY

Abstract

This paper analyzes ideologies — understood as an extralegal factor — developed textually in the discursive genre of legal sentences. By articulating the conjectures of Bourdieu and Van Dijk, we created a theoretical framework that defines the legal field as a social and discursive practice able to create axiomatic beliefs about people. Then, we applied this theoretical approach through a Critical Discourse Analysis about a criminal sentence condemning a Mapuche individual. It is defined as a study case given that the selected example expresses the way in which axiomatic beliefs about an individual from a minority group are built. We conclude our research by reflecting on the possibility of applying this theoretical approach to the study of different corpuses of sentences.