Modality in Pakistani Legislative Discourse: A Corpus-Based Study of Modal Forms

Abstract

This research delves into the distribution and functions of modals in Pakistani legislative discourse. Specifically, it focuses on a post-partition corpus of Pakistani law comprising 3,382 legal documents and analyzes the modals: shall, may, will, should, would, can, could, and might. It employs a corpus-based frequency and cluster analysis to study the legal discourses of obligation, permission, prohibition, discretion, future, possibility, legal continuity, and legal hypotheticals. The results show the convergence of the modal auxiliaries "shall" and "may". Shall occurs 182,975 times, making up 61.39% of the total modal tokens, while may occurs 105,216 times and composes 35.30%. Together, shall and may account for 96.69% of the total modal dataset. The remaining modals, will, should, would, can, could, and might, make up 3.31%. The results from clusters also show that shall be, shall not, shall have, shall come, and shall consist of are the key phrases in the legal continuity of obligation and prohibition. In the same way, may be, may by, may extend, may deem, and may make establish discretion, may authorize, and delegated legislation are found in the Pakistani legal discourse. Pakistani legislative discourse, the study argues, is heavily influenced by the common law and drafting traditions. Using "shall" in legal drafting may create ambiguity when a single modal form serves multiple functions. The study’s main argument is that Pakistani legal English may benefit from legislative drafting that employs clear, unambiguous modals.