ʼn Forensies-semantiese beskouing van die woordgebruik ‘onkoste’ in die hofsaak Commissioner for South African Revenue Service vs. Labat Africa Limited

Abstract

Die regsdomein vereis te alle tye goeie taalkennis en -gebruik. Dit gebeur dikwels dat ʼn regsdispuut om taal en taalgebruik sentreer. Een só ʼn voorbeeld is die saak Commissioner for South African Revenue Service v. Labat Africa Limited. In sowel die betrokke appèlhofsaak as die voorafgaande hofsake word die regsuitspraak gebaseer op die interpretasie van die woord ‘onkoste’. Met hierdie artikel word daar vasgestel of die interpretasie korrek is deur die onderhawige woord semanties te ontleed deur Shuy (1986) se analisemodel aan te wend. Die semantiese ontleding fokus onder meer op die definisie van die woord, semantiese veldanalise, komponensiële analise en kontekstualisering.

The world of law requires a thorough knowledge and command of language at all times. It happens quite often that a legal dispute revolves around language and the use thereof. One such example is the case of Commissioner for South African Revenue Service v. Labat Africa Limited. In this case of appeal, as well as in the cases that led to it, the judgement is based on the interpretation of the word ‘expenditure’. This article tries to determine whether the interpretation is correct by using Shuy’s (1986) model to analyse the word semantically. The semantic analysis focuses on the definition of words, semantic field analysis, componential analysis and contextualisation.

Southern African Linguistics and Applied Language Studies 2012, 30(4): 487–496