English-language marketplaces as the field of popular legal discourse (on the material of the USA bankruptsy law)

Abstract

The author studies a contemporary English-language field of popular legal discourse called marketplace websites. He also analyzes the features of the texts from such sources. The websites are classified by the type of communication between the texts` authors and readers. A number of legal marketplace websites are analyzed from the point of it`s textual content. The purpose of the research is to study legal marketplace websites and their texts and outline the features of such websites discourse. In the course of the research different methods were used such as analysis and synthesis, comparative method, constructive and distributive methods. The author also paid attention to the convenience of searching for the necessary legal texts within the websites. Some of the sites are not effective from the point of arranging the texts by topic, subtopic and areas of law. This makes finding the required information and communicating more difficult. Fifty texts from three websites were analyzed in the course of the research. Several texts are examined in this article to illustrate the purposes and language features of the texts. The author describes a number of characteristics which give the texts a special discursive character. Marketplace websites contain texts which are useful and accessible for internet users. A particular level of commercialization of such discourse was discovered. The results of the research can be applied in the course of writing popular legal texts, arranging websites content and conducting other research. The author made a number of conclusions about convenience of communication between lawyers and lay people via marketplace websites and also about it`s specific discourse.