10.26180/5cecc827423b3 DAVID DAR WEI TAN DAVID DAR WEI TAN Communicating the Law: An Optimality-Theoretic Account of Inference for Legal Interpretation Monash University 2019 legal philosophy legal interpretation philosophy of language Statutory interpretation Constitutional interpretation Law 2019-05-28 05:33:25 Thesis https://bridges.monash.edu/articles/thesis/Communicating_the_Law_An_Optimality-Theoretic_Account_of_Inference_for_Legal_Interpretation/8190266 This thesis argues that to interpret the law, there need to be rules for drawing conclusions about the correct interpretation of legal texts. This thesis assumes that these rules are linguistic rules and will show how they can be systematised using three linguistic theories: Optimality Theory, Relevance Theory, and Levinson's theory of presumptive meanings.