Uncovering the organizing principle underlying legal argumentation: A semantic density analysis of judges’ decision-making

The “rule of game” that govern legal argumentation as a social practice form the base upon which judges achieve success in argumentation. Using semantic density from Legitimation Code Theory (LCT), this study investigates the implicit rules that shape legal argumentation, by uncovering the underlying organizing principles: how varying degrees of meaning complexity (semantic density) shape judges’ argumentation. An analysis of 18 judicial judgments reveals that legal argumentation unfolds in several distinct phases, each marked by different strengths of semantic density. Dynamic shifts in semantic density—visualized as semantic waves—illustrate how judges weave together facts and laws to construct legitimate argumentation. This could provide the criteria by which achievement within legal argumentation should be measured.