EVALUATIVE LANGUAGE IN LANDMARK PAKISTANI SUPREME COURT JUDGMENTS: A CORPUS-BASED APPRAISAL THEORY ANALYSIS
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.68156/da2pmk92Keywords:
Appraisal Theory, Constitutional Judgments, Corpus Linguistics, Evaluative Language, Judicial Discourse, Legal Discourse, Supreme Court of Pakistan, Systemic Functional Linguistics.Abstract
Judicial judgments are not merely legal documents; they are persuasive institutional texts through which judges evaluate constitutional principles, governmental actions, and legal arguments. Despite the growing body of research on legal discourse, limited attention has been paid to the evaluative dimensions of Pakistani judicial language. This study investigates evaluative language in landmark judgments of the Supreme Court of Pakistan using Appraisal Theory within the framework of Systemic Functional Linguistics. A specialized corpus comprising eight landmark constitutional judgments delivered between 1972 and 2017 was purposively compiled and analysed through a corpus-assisted qualitative research design. The study integrates Corpus Linguistics with Appraisal Theory to examine how the appraisal systems of Attitude, Engagement, and Graduation construct judicial authority, constitutional legitimacy, and persuasive legal reasoning. The findings indicate that evaluative language is a pervasive feature of Pakistani constitutional judicial discourse. Attitude, particularly Judgment, emerged as the dominant appraisal resource, reflecting judges' emphasis on evaluating the legality, propriety, and constitutional conduct of governmental institutions and public authorities. Engagement resources reveal the dialogic nature of judicial reasoning through the negotiation of competing legal arguments and constitutional interpretations, while Graduation resources strengthen the intensity and certainty of judicial evaluation. Collectively, these appraisal systems enable judges to reinforce constitutional supremacy, institutional credibility, and the rule of law. The study extends the application of Appraisal Theory to Pakistani judicial discourse and demonstrates the value of integrating corpus linguistic techniques with discourse analysis in legal language research. It contributes to the fields of legal linguistics, forensic linguistics, corpus-assisted discourse studies, and judicial discourse analysis by providing new insights into the linguistic construction of judicial evaluation in constitutional adjudication.
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Copyright (c) 2026 Hafsa Mumtaz, Kashf Naseer, Rimsha Jan Muhammad (Author)
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