Exploring the interface between corpus and statistical modelling: a multi-methodological analysis of lexical variation in Islamic legal discourse

Abstract

This research sets out to investigate how ‘culture-specific’ or ‘signature’ concepts are rendered in English-language discourse on Islamic, or ‘shariʿa law. Islamic jurisprudence is born from the fusion of Islamic scriptures and Arabic culture; therefore, it provides ample room for accommodating a distinctive legal diction that is both culture-bound and system-bound. Accordingly, the expression of shariʿa law in English would fall under the paradigm of intersystemic translation, which occurs upon the mediation between two legal systems and poses the challenge of incongruity of legal terminology. This study is based on the self-built Islamic Law Corpus (ILC), a 9-million-word monolingual English corpus, covering diverse genres on Islamic finance and family law. Using the power of corpus-processing and statistical regression software (Sketch Engine & MATLAB), this research presents a multi-methodological, multifactorial, and interdisciplinary approach to investigate lexical variation in expressing cultural phenomena within Islamic legal discourse. The analysis confirms that the contextual factors (‘genre’, ‘function’, and ‘subject field’) do influence the choice of an Arabic loanword versus English alternatives.