Un genere testuale attraverso i confini nazionali: la sentenza

This article illustrates the results of the third stage of a research project on the generic structure and linguistic traits of courts judgments written in Italian. Four corpora in electronic format have been compiled, including texts by the Court of Justice of the European Union, the Italian Court of Cassation, the Swiss Federal Court and the Appeal Court of Canton Ticino. Statistical software was used to assess differences in terms of lexical richness, lexical density and readability and to calculate verb tense frequencies and distribution patterns. The shortcomings of automatic quantitative analysis may be redressed through qualitative surveys and, in addition to highlighting differences in the Italian written in Italy, Switzerland and the EU institutions, data can provide insights and suggestions for more effective drafting techniques.