Õigussemiootika uurimisala ja -eesmärgid
The field of legal semiotics and its objectives

Summary/Abstract: This overview article about the research field and the main research questions of legal semiotics summarizes the emergence of the legal semiotics in the footsteps of Ch. S. Peirce, F. de Saussure and German hermeneutics. The article is in dialogue with Vadim Verenich’s “Semotics of Law” published in the textbook “Semiotics” (ed. Salupere, Kull 2018). The article points out that semiotics of law is geographically and thematically fragmented and therefore has several research objectives. These do not coincide with the research objectives of legal theory. Therefore, legal science cannot be used instead of legal theory, but together with it. American legal semioticians, who use the concept of sign by Peirce, are interested in process of understanding a law; process of argumentation and the change of law. For their study, Peirce’s categories of metaphysics, definitions of sign and a model of infinite semiosis are used. Authors using Saussurean perspective analyze the relationship between a single rule and the whole legal system. German legal semiotics continues the tradition of German legal theory and asks for appropriate methods for the interpretation of law.

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