Université de Montréal - Thèse sous forme numérique

173favourable decisions are quite standard and the performative verb does not vary: (The)appeal (is / should be) allowed (with costs / in part). Formulations expressing anunfavourable decision are quite standard too: (The) appeal (is / should be) dismissed (withcosts). In some cases, the decision made by the judges can be both positive and negative:Appeal allowed and cross-appeal dismissed.In the case R v. Solowan, [2008] 3 S.C.R. 309 (cf. Appendix 3), the judges decidedto deny the request of the appellant (Appeal dismissed). Judges have to vote to reach adecision. Decisions can be unanimous, majoritarian, concurring or dissenting. In the case ofthe aforementioned judgment the decision of the judges was unanimous.4.1.3.5. ContentAlthough the judgments of the English subcorpus have the same macrostructure, theircontent can vary considerably. As mentioned, each document contains an identificationsection with indexing terms for documentation purposes. These terms point to or indicatethe themes of the texts. In order to identify the content of the texts included in the Englishsubcorpus, a list of the indexing terms of the texts of the corpus was compiled. Indexingterms with a very high frequency score in the corpus are Charter of Rights, followed byCriminal law and evidence. Indexing terms may take the form of simple keywords(evidence), the form of complex keywords (exclusion of evidence) and even the form ofclauses (Whether doctrine of issue estoppel should be retained in criminal law). Indexingterms in the form of clauses occur in the corpus about 380 times. Appendix 4 lists 36indexing terms appearing 10 times or over in the identification sections of the English texts.4.1.4. Comparability and representativenessThe corpus used in the research was designed to compare the legal terminology used byPortuguese civil law judges and Canadian common law judges. It is representative of the