SPORTS TERMS IN AMERICAN JUDICIAL APPELLATE OPINIONS

Abstract

Sports metaphor-terms are used in law journal article titles and published state and federal court cases (in judicial opinions) to describe the process of litigation, the actions of attorneys, trial strategies and goals, or the courtroom environment. Mostly only few sports metaphor-terms, bouncing around legal arenas in legal instruments, can be easily understood without prior background knowledge of sports, and consequently the unexpected clash between the source and the target domains sets new hurdles in the comprehension process of the complex nature of legal English.