An Outline of the Issues of Legal Categorization on the Example of Selected Provisions of the Polish Criminal Law

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to theoretically outline the problems of language categorizations made on the basis of the Penal Code currently in force in the Republic of Poland. The research hypothesis is expressed in the statement that these categorizations take place both in accordance with the classical model, referred to as the Necessary and Sufficient Condition Model, and in accordance with the prototype model adopted in the framework of cognitive linguistics. Legal concepts can therefore have the character of fuzzy sets (without clearly delineated boundaries), as well as binary sets (assigning their elements on an either-or  principle). The research methodology is a linguistic methodology and the subject of research is the contemporary language of law. The work falls within the framework of a relatively young research field, which is jurislinguistics.