Géneros especializados del ámbito jurídico: organización retórica-discursiva de la sentencia y la demanda en contexto chileno

In today’s society, judges and litigants must write effective texts which respond to the demands of both the professional area and the general public. This highlights the need to foster specialized literacy processes. Thus, this study explores two discursive genres in the legal field, and the difficulties in written production faced by legal professionals. A description of the rhetorical-discursive organization of two relevant genres in the legal field: the court ruling and the lawsuit is proposed. To this end, 100 civil and criminal court rulings were analyzed, along with 100 civil lawsuits drafted by lawyers. In addition, this textual study is complemented with ethnographic information obtained through an in-depth interview with a professional in the field. The results shape two rhetorical-discursive models composed of 3 macro-moves, 5 moves and 11 steps for the court ruling, and 6 macro-moves, 6 moves and 14 steps for the lawsuit. These descriptions reveal a high degree of stability in the genres, rooted in the characteristics of the discourse community in which they are inscribed. Therefore, the study provides valuable information for professional legal literacy, as well as for optimizing high-quality legal text writing.