Style as a Deviation: An Analysis of Stylo-Graphic Idiosyncrasies of Legislative Texts

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I. Introduction
The general belief is that "Humans need a tool, namely the language used to establish good and correct communication" (Hismulyati, 2023:76).However, legal documents are considered one of the least expressive human-coded artefacts in the society.Observation demonstrates that the reasons commonly given for this view are not relevant to the language species used to write the documents.This claim is based on text display stylistics.One can see why language researchers separate language meaning/function from language use to clarify thoughts and concepts.Communication, according to Chapel and Read (1984) in Dada (2004:20), is "any means by which a thought is transferred from one person to another".In Akalugo (2001:10) it is "the process of transmitting ideas, facts, feelings, knowledge and intention from one person to another to influence behavior".However, the real import of this view by Akalugo's is seen in Eyre's (1983:1) position as cited in Bamisaye's (2008:10) that, "communication is not just the giving of information", but, "it is the giving of understandable information and receiving and understanding the message" with the aim of generating the intended perlocution.
While Khusnul (2023:98) argued that "language plays an important role in human life because language is always related to almost all human activities", Tinuoye's (2003:02) characterization of language as "an instrument of thought or concept" which "gives vivid and clear expression to human thought" and therefore "has a great influence on human thinking and human interaction" makes one to find the invaluable connection between language, thought and communication.It therefore becomes clear that, without language as "a viable tool of expression" (Yusuf, 2005:54), communication may absolutely be impossible.Having said this, it is important to emphasize that despite the language-communication inseparableness, something of higher order interest is actually the language use in communication.The area of scholarship that specializes on this is stylistics.Stylistics investigates language use across all the levels of language features.When it comes to analyzing the stylistic features of a text, Dámová (2007:15-16) recognizes phonetics, graphetics, phonology (phonemics), graphology (graphemics), grammar (both the syntactic and morphological, vocabulary, semantic, textual levels.Forensic linguistics, being a branch of applied linguistics that investigates "how linguistic knowledge is applied to the world of law" as it "studies, namely linguistics that is in contact with law and all legal products" ( Kushartanti, Yuwono, & Lauder (2005) in Riska (2023:89), this paper is set out to analyze the deployment of the graphological resources of language use in communicating the contents and the intents of some selected legislative texts with a view to highlighting the fact that, the graphological features of language are as much important as any other features as far as the communicative contents and intents of a text is concerned, most especially in the context of legal communication.

II. Review of Literature
According to Yasser (2008:13), "legislative or statutory writings" constitute a subtype of legal writings "consisting of Acts of Parliament, Contracts, treaties, etc." Wikipedia defines a treaty "as an agreement under international law entered into by actors in international law, namely sovereign states and international organizations".It adds that "a treaty may also be known as an (international) agreement, protocol, covenant, convention, pact or exchange of letters, among other terms.
Irrespective of typology, the belief is that the ability to comprehend the meaning of legal texts is beyond the reach of the legally un-initiated members of the general society, their levels of education or domains of expertise notwithstanding.The implication of this is that the competence to encode and decode meaning of messages composed with the language of law is an exclusive preserve of legal experts such as lawyers, judges, legal scholars and the likes.And, as a consequence, such language can only be adopted in communication or be mutually comprehensible and intelligible when, and only when, the 'deep' converse with the 'deep' within the confines of the legal profession -The world of the law.
However, this criticism of non-communicativeness against legal language has been argued on many grounds.One is that most legal documents are crafted with a high degree of formality and technical complexities due to the massive employment of archaic or rarely used words and expressions.Another is that the frequent employment of repetition of some particular words and expressions, complex syntactic structures or long and complex sentences, frequent use of passive constructions as well as high impersonal style of composition have all been responsible for rendering the legally un-initiated uncomfortable in comprehending legal texts (Christopher 2004:112).This is corroborated by Trosborg's (1991:66) assertion that legal English "derives from language use in writing in which the level of formality can be characterized as frozen or formal.Hence, Crystal & Davy (1969:193-194) refer to prescriptive legal documents as a genre that is "not only one of the least communicative of all uses of language, but also about as far removed as possible from informal spontaneous conversation" of everyday life.
The foregoing notwithstanding, James Boyd, as mentioned in Edwin (2010:85) opines that "the most serious obstacles to the comprehensibility of legal language are not the vocabulary and sentence structures employed, but the unstated conventions by which the language operates "Edwin believes that White refers to these unstated conventions as "the invisible discourse of the law" because White is of the conviction that "even where legal rules are crafted in clear, simple and precise form, non-law research students are still unlikely to fully understand them because they are unacquainted with the schemata on which they are based" (Edwin 2010: 81).It is noteworthy that wikipedia, an online Free Encyclopedia, defines a schema as the singular form of schemata or schemas, and as "a mental structure of preconceived ideas, a framework representing some aspect of the world, or a system of organizing new information" which "helps in understanding the world..." Differentiating narrative schemata from legal schemata, Edwin asserts that "the stylistics of text presentations of both narrative and legal materials (which he christens discourse structures of both legal and narrative materials) differ from each other."The discourse structure of narrative material is different from that of legal materials" (Edwin, 2010:82-83).While, according to Edwin, "the schema for narrative materials dictate that each sentence and paragraph is to be linked to those that precede and follow it" through the restatement of the relevant part of the old information from the preceding sentences and paragraphs in the following ones, and new information is added to it in a recursive manner for coherence and cohesion purposes, "the discourse structure of legal material drafted in conventional legal language is not based on the old/new strategy".
Citing legislative text as an instance, Edwin (Edwin 2010:83) claims that "sections and sub-sections (provisions) are expressed in single sentence structures".These are "usually crammed full of information" and "they are not semantically linked closely to sentences that follow or precede them" but concentrating large quantity of information into single sentence structure thereby "resulting in a structure that is not only tightly woven and extremely dense, but also causally complex".Given that the levels of stylistic analysis include graphological, phonological and phonetic, lexico-semantic, morphological and syntactic levels (Lawal 2003:29-30), the general aim of this paper is to examine the graphological aspect of the stylistics of two selected treaty based legislative texts with a view to explaining the impact of the graphological features of language on the ability of legal addressees to comprehending, or otherwise, the authorial intention of such texts.
Style has been defined by several scholars, making it difficult to find a singular definition.Crystal and Davy (1997:9-10), cited in Damova (2007:13), defined style as: (i) individual language habits, such as "Shakespeare style"; (ii) shared habits, such as "the style of Old English"; (iii) evaluative expression effectiveness, such as "saying the right thing".
According to all viewpoints, style is only a way of doing something.This may explain why Adegbija (1998:140) says "style concerns how your ideas are conveyed".In relation to language and stylistics, Dada (2012:87) argues that "style, in a way, co-exists with language" and that "indeed, every utterance/text has a style determined by contextual probabilities".Asserting that "stylistics in its simplest form studies style" and that "a writer's style may be regarded as an individual and creative utilization of the resources of language which his period, his chosen dialect, his genre and his purpose" has offered or allowed him, Dada affirms that "focus on style entails close attention to the surface structures…." One important thing to note from all the explanations by different scholars above is that any attempt to gain an in-depth understanding of any written text will take cognizance of the graphological features of the text.This accounts for why the physical layout/arrangement is not for the fun of it.The words of Dubsky (1962:9) as cited in Dada (2012:88) that foregrounding is "the use of the devices of language in such a way that this use attracts attention "is instructive.It means that one will easily dismiss the erroneous belief by some scholars like Fowler (1971) that stylistic analysis is merely an academic exercise with little or nothing to contribute to meaning but rather, a way of discerning a writer's mood, personality and psychology.It is apt to know that, regarding legal texts, Naveed et al (2013:228) affirms that "English legal texts, particularly, contracts have a certain layout norms adopted when they are drafted".According to him, "some of these are paragraph division, indentation, punctuation, capitalization, bold typing, and italization etc, each of which has a function within legal text; their use renders these texts more cohesive and coherent.However, outlining the structure of legislation, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) (www.google.com:21)asserts that "legislation is generally divided into three components" as listed below: 1. Introductory provisions; (ii) The body of the law, and (iii) The final provision EURALIUS opines that "the division of a law, in a descending order are: 2. Parts; (ii) Titles; (iii) Chapters and (iv) Sections While affirming that "the basic structural unit of a law text is an article" it presents "the divisions of an article, in descending order" as below:

The Preamble
According to Hillier (2004:12), "preamble of a Declaration mostly looks like a short paragraph but is made up of just a complex sentence, so it conveys a lot of information in only one sentence.Commenting further on the style of preambles of declarations, Hillier asserts that "using the specific sentence, which is extremely long, is a typical feature of a preamble" 1. Chapters: In the case of an extensive law -generally of more than 15 -20 articles -the best practice is to gather articles with similar subject matter into chapters with appropriate heading.Chapters are numbered consecutively with Arabic numerals, thus: "Chapter I", Chapter 2", etc. 2. Sections: Articles of a chapter with a similar subject matter may be further grouped into section.Sections are numbered consecutively with Arabic numerals, thus: "Section I", "Section 2", etc. 3. Headings of Divisions of a Law: The headings of divisions of a law form part of the text of the law.Headings should be brief but avoid phrases that fail to indicate the subject matter of a division, such as "general provisions" EURALIUS (2006: 47-48).It is also noteworthy that the term "article" which has been defined above as "the basic structural unit of a law text" is also seen as "the basic structural division of a law" whose design "should assume that the article is to be read as a unit" and that " each article should be kept to manageable length".It is also said that "articles should be numbered consecutively with Arabic numerals, thus, "Article 1", "Article 2", etc. EURALIUS (2006:48).
Paragraph: Articles' main divisions are paragraphs.Generally, articles should include three or four paragraphs.If more are needed, drafters might consider breaking the information into many articles.Article paragraphs are numbered with Arabic numbers and stops: "1", "2", "3", etc.Some say a paragraph should have one entire phrase.The text must start on a new line and end with a full stop to be considered a paragraph.A paragraph with introduction words and sub-paragraphs is likewise a paragraph.Sub-Paragraph: Clarifies paragraph language and removes conditions.Drafters should be aware that sub-paragraphs may tempt them into writing long sentences and consider splitting the text into shorter sentences instead.Subparagraphs should be grammatically and logically related to the introduction.
Sub-Sub-Paragraphs: A sub-paragraph cannot have sub-sub-paragraphs without numbers.Numbering sub-sub-paragraphs follows the progressive order of articles and subparagraphs.Many sub-sub-paragraphs make reading the text difficult, hence they should be avoided.(EURALIUS 2006:48-50).
Many research have examined language and law.Alabi's (2003) analysis of legal discourse's general stylistic features, Damova's (2007) analysis of law's stylistic features with a focus on lexical (binomial) expressions, Trosborg's (1991) analysis of legal speech acts in English contract law, Alo and Ogungbe's (2012) analysis of justice in three appellate rulings on election petitions, and Ayo and Olaosun's (2012) pragmatic acts in Court rulings wit Investigation shows that grapho-stylistic implications for meaning in legal texts are always overlooked and understudied, and its significance in scholarly efforts to analyse and explain legal texts' pragma-semantic positions is still unclear.Note that this work will overlook areas of analysis already thoroughly investigated by Alabi (2003), Dada (2012), Ajenifari (2012), Nawaz (2013), Khan and Khan (2015), and others.Punctuation, capitalization, italicization, bold or gothic prints, brackets, abbreviations, etc.It will focus on graphological properties that are unique to legislative texts under investigation.This study will evaluate the graphological arrangement of two treaty-based legislative documents to identify and explain the distinctive use of graphological resources in texts, demonstrate how different graphological resources affect the pragmatic and semantic consequences of legislative communications, and argue that stylistic studies, especially graphological analysis, are not for pleasure or intellectual ex

III. Research Methods
Since legislative writings can be divided into acts of parliament, contrasts, treaties, and others, this study analyses a human rights treaty.The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (2006) asserts fourteen core international human rights treaties.This research analyses one of them using the graphological deviational technique of the pragma-stylistic framework.The International Covenant on Economics, Social, and Cultural Rights 1976 (ICESCR) discourse structure/layout will be analysed for graphological anomalies.The selected text has 31 articles in five sections, but only one is randomly selected for examination in each part.Refer to Halliday (1971) graphostylistics and Mukarovsky (1964) foregrounding and deviation.Ayeomoni (2012:102) quotes Mukarovsky (1932) as saying "foregrounding is connected with deviation from linguistic and literary norms"."Deviation means a stylistics term which is a deautomatization of familiar linguistic and literary norm" Halliday (1985:35) recognizes two graphological rank-scale units: Letters and words are below the sentence, whereas paragraphs, sections, and documents are above.This study will analyse the graphological properties of the given data just for the latter.Dada (2012:88) states that "Stylistically designed text can only be interpreted pragmatically in that a semantic approach will definitely fail to capture the intended meaning of the writer" and that the "graphological arrangement of a text simply expresses how the intention of an author determines the form/style".Below are the data:

ENTRY INTO FORCE: 3 JANUARY 1976, IN ACCORDANCE WITH ARTICLE 27 PREAMBLE The States Parties to the present Covenant
Considering that, in accordance with the principles proclaimed in the Charter of the United Nations, recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world, Recognizing that these rights derive from the inherent dignity of the human person, Recognizing that, in accordance with the Universal Declarations of Human Rights, the ideal of free human beings enjoying freedom from fear and want can only be achieved in conditions are created whereby everyone may enjoy his economic, social and cultural rights, as well as his civil and political rights, Considering the obligations of States under the Charter of the United Nations to promote universal respect for, and observance of, human rights and freedoms, Realizing that the individual, having duties to other individuals and to the community to which he belongs, is under a responsibility to strive for the promotion and observance of the rights recognized in the present Covenant, Agree upon the following articles: PART I: Article 1 1 All peoples have the right of self-determination.By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development.2 All peoples may, for their own ends, freely dispose of their natural wealth and resources without prejudice to any obligations arising out of international economic cooperation, based upon the principle of mutual benefit, and international law.In no case may a people be deprived of its own means of subsistence.

IV. Results and Discussion
It is observed that the text under analysis has unique arrangement of discourse structure viz: Introductory parts, the body and the ending.Though each structural unit further sub-divides into small structural units, on a broader perspective, the text is basically divided into the beginning (which is the introductory part), the middle (which is the main body of legislative texts) and the conclusion (which represents the conclusions of the provisions).

The Introductory Part: The Title, Preamble and the enacting formulae
Observation shows that the document under analysis contains an introductory part that further sub-divides into other sub-structural elements viz: The title, the preamble, the enacting formula, the purpose, scope, date of adoption, reason for adoption, adopting institution/organizations, other related document and restatement of the subject matter, aim and objective.While the above represents the general features of the introductory part of the document under analysis, it can be seen that the introductory part divides into two broad parts: The title and the preamble.While the title in itself communicates the identity peculiarities and the subject matter of the document, it also expresses the scope, topic, aim and focus of the text.Also noteworthy is the fact that the title is accompanied with two separate riders, the first of which contains pieces of information concerning the adoption status, signatory, ratification, and accenting/enacting authority, the edition of the resolution as well as the date of adoption.The second rider spells out the date which the document enters into force and the name of the empowering legal instrument for the document.Citing cases from our documents, we have the following: The second part of the broad division of the introductory component of the document is titled "PREAMBLE".It is the stating of the enacting authorities that immediately succeeds the title "PREAMBLE".The enacting authority in the document is as stated below: In the document, we have: The States parties to the present Covenant.
A close examination of the document also reveals how typical the legislative text as a legal and normative artifact is.Below are the displays of both the titles and the preambles from our data: In the document, we have: Considering that, in accordance with the principles proclaimed in the Charter of the United Nations, recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world, Recognizing that these rights derive from the inherent dignity of the human person, Recognizing that, in accordance with the Universal Declarations of Human Rights, the ideal of free human beings enjoying freedom from fear and want can only be achieved in conditions are created whereby everyone may enjoy his economic, social and cultural rights, as well as his civil and political rights, Considering the obligations of States under the Charter of the United Nations to promote universal respect for, and observance of, human rights and freedoms, Realizing that the individual, having duties to other individuals and to the community to which he belongs, is under a responsibility to strive for the promotion and observance of the rights recognized in the present Covenant, Agree upon the following articles:

International Covenant on Economic, Social & Cultural Rights
The prototypical inclusion of the preamble in the document means that it constitutes a regular and inevitable element and component of the textual configuration of the regulatory law text.Though this may not be without some marginal variations in terms of lengths, paragraphing as well as lexical choices when different outputs from different legislative institutions are compared.However, one discourse fundamental peculiarity is observable in the document.This also, at the same time, attests to its performative character as a legislative text as well as an action text in general.As an act of enactment or an act of performance of the law by the law makers, the starting expression of every paragraph of the preamble and the last clause of preamble in general.For example, in the documents we have the followings as the starting expressions and the last performative clause presupposing the earlier mentioned enacting authority of the text as the subject: The States Parties to the present Covenant … (As the enacting authority) Considering that… (paragraph one) Recognizing that…( paragraph two) Recognizing that…( paragraph three) Considering that…( paragraph four) Realizing that…( paragraph five) …Agree upon the following articles: … (As the enacting performative declaration) It can be observed that it is not by sheer coincidence, but rather, by special normative design, that the document features the above cited excerpt.And, it has to a remarkable extent, communicatedpieces of conditional information, from the startingpoint as the pedestals upon which the summation of the performative clause 'Agree upon the following articles' standsfor the legislative decision to be consummated as an act of parliament.It therefore follows from the excerpts, that certain pragma-semantic implications are sacrosanct to the stylistics of communication/presentation of the legislative texts.On the one hand, the pragmatic/ pragma-stylistic function of the introductory expressions such as '… Recognizing that…Considering that…Realizing that… etc. in each of the paragraphs of the preamble, is an the attestation to the fact that certain pieces of background information, events, circumstances, occurrences and/or necessities constitute the pre-conditions that form the basis for mutual or consensual agreement among the stakeholders to the concerned legislative document.This is why it is generally believed that legislative documents of this nature is a product of the contextual realities that pervade or prevail as at the moment of the legislative enactment of a particular normative document.The expressions presuppose certain prevailing realities that make it sane for the relevant authorities to come on board and do what is proper and obvious in the circumstance.Hence, one can observe the under-listed from the preambles of the documents under the current analysis: -the bases and/or purpose for the enactment of the documents; -body or organization responsible for the document; -legal instruments responsible or related to the current document; -Categorical statement of commitment, intention, promise, or, -faith in the contents and intents he document and, -the enacting authority of the document.
On the other hand, as already indicated, the summative performative clause of the preamble is very germane to the performative character of the treaty under analysis.The reason being that it represents the actual act of enactment of the document.The clause contains performative verb "agree", attesting to the fact that an actual act of agreement has been contracted.In the first instance, it is noteworthy that the last clause, taking into consideration its inclusion of an explicit performative verb, represents what legal scholars, such as Trosborg (1995: 32) as cited in Allott and Shaer (2013:01) refers to as "enacting formula".

Analysis of Paragraphs and Sub-Paragraphs: Parts, Articles and Numbering
The division of texts into parts, paragraphs and sub-paragraphs is observed in our text as the general grapho-stylistics of legislative texts.This is observed to be for the purpose of breaking the legislative contents into identifiable and understandable units of ideas for easy reference and applications.The text under analysis is broadly divided into five numbered parts with each containing varying numbers of paragraphs and sub-paragraphs (articles).We observe that the partitioning, paragraphing and numbering as well as the use of riders in the preamble section are for ideational demarcations and foregrounding.It also allows each parts and paragraphs to become an isolated informational entity as an independent and recognizable idea.This paves ways for easy location/tracing as well as possibility of use for legal citations when the need arises.It facilitates textual cohesion and coherence in addition to being deployed as transitional resources for the flow of legislative thought and legal communicativeness in legal context.

V. Conclusion
The discussion and analysis above shows that the graphic elements in our data are unique enough to qualify it as legal/legislative house style.One could consider these elements as typifying the sociolinguistic characterization of legal discourse which has its pragmasemantic effects on legal communication.They may be seen as the branding label that distinguish legal text and its register of communication from other sites for literary, business, military, journalistic, medical, engineering, and other communicative genres.
The three contextually impelled Meta functions of language-ideational, interpersonal, and textual-can be seen as supported by graphology, as an important pragma-stylistic communicative instrument, according to Halliday (1994).As raw material for meaning communication in legal/legislative contexts, their misappropriation may lead to misinformation or incorrect communication.This can cause legal misinterpretation, miscarriage of justice, judicial or magisterial error, legal misrepresentation, and legal errors of reference.
Thus, this work may agree with Edwin (2010) in his explanation that the narrative and legal text presentations have different stylistics.However, the study disagrees with Fowler (1971) who claims that stylistic analysis is essentially a mere academic exercise with no meaning implications.
3. Articles; (ii) Paragraphs; (iii) Sub-paragraph and (iv) Sub-sub-paragraph Explaining the features of each of the structural unit of a law text, EURALIUS (2006:47-48) presents the following: 2.1 Division of Law 1. Parts: These are used in most comprehensive law texts, such as codes.They are numbered consecutively, either "First Part", Second Part" or "Part I, "Part II, etc. 2. Titles: This may further divide parts into titles (each containing several chapters), numbered consecutively with Roman numerals.e.g.Title I or Part I of the Civil Code lists the subjects of the code, Title II provides for the rules on representation, Title III governs transactions and so forth.
3 The States Parties to the present Covenant, including those having responsibility for the administration of Non-Self-Governing and Trust Territories, shall promote the realization of the right of self-determination, and shall respect that right, in conformity with the provisions of the Charter of the United Nations.PART II: Article 3The States Parties to the present Covenant undertake to ensure the equal right of men and women to the enjoyment of all economic, social and cultural rights set forth in the present Covenant.PART III:Article 8 1.The States Parties to the present Covenant undertake to ensure: (a) The right of everyone to form trade unions and join the trade union of his choice, subject only to the rules of the organization concerned, for the promotion and protection of his economic and social interests.No restrictions may be placed on the exercise of this right other than those prescribed by law and which are necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security or public order or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others; (b) The right of trade unions to establish national federations or confederations and the right of the latter to form or join international trade union organizations; (c) The right of trade unions to function freely subject to no limitations other than those prescribed by law and which are necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security or public order or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others; (d) The right to strike, provided that it is exercised in conformity with the laws of the particular country.2. This article shall not prevent the imposition of lawful restrictions on the exercise of these rights by members of the armed forces or of the police or of the administration of the State.3. Nothing in this article shall authorize States Parties to the International Labor Organization Convention of 1948 concerning Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to organize to take legislative measures which would prejudice….PART IV: Article 25 Nothing in the present Covenant shall be interpreted as impairing the inherent right of all peoples to enjoy and utilize fully and freely their natural wealth and resources.PART VPART V: Article 30 Irrespective of the notifications made under article 26, paragraph 5, the Secretary-General of the United Nations shall inform all States referred to in paragraph 1 of the same article of the following particulars: a. Signatures, ratifications and accessions under article 26; b.The date of the entry into force of the present Covenant under article 27 and the date of the entry into force of any amendments under article 29

International
Covenant on Economic, Social & Cultural Rights, we have: (a) Title: International Covenant on Economic, Social & Cultural Rights.(b) First Rider: Adopted and opened for signature, ratification and accession by General Assembly resolution 2200A (XXI) of 16 December 1996.(c) Second Rider: ENTRY INTO FORCE: 3 JANUARY 1976, IN ACCORDANCE WITH ARTICLES 27.
Adopted and opened for signature, ratification and accession by General Assembly resolution 2200 A (XXI) of 16 December 1996ENTRY INTO FORCE: 3 JANUARY 1976, IN ACCORDANCE WITH ARTICLE 27 PREAMBLEThe States Parties to the present Covenant