This volume focuses on arbitration awards as a discursive genre and draws on the results of research on the discourses of international commercial arbitration conducted within the framework of an international project (“International Commercial Arbitration Practices: A Discourse Analytical Study”) setting out to explore the hypothesis that, as suggested in recent times by various scholars, arbitration practice, procedures and discourses are being increasingly contaminated by litigation, thus compromising the integrity of arbitration principles. The genre investigated is especially interesting in this respect, as arbitration awards represent the final textual outcome of arbitration proceedings. The various chapters of the book, based on the analysis of different international corpora of arbitration awards in various languages (English, French, Italian, Spanish and Chinese), attack the same theme, investigating different aspects of the discursive construction of awards, with a view to identifying any elements of interdiscursivity that may provide evidence for or against the main hypothesis.

The discussion of these issues also has theoretical relevance, as it provides interesting insights into the mechanisms that preside over the contamination and hybridization among genres in professional practice.

Vijay K. Bhatia has research interests in genre analysis of academic and professional discourses in legal, business, newspaper and advertising contexts. He has published widely in these areas with research articles, books chapters, edited volumes and monographs. Two of his books, Analysing Genre: Language Use in Professional Settings and Worlds of Written Discourse: A Genre-Based View, are widely used by researchers in genre theory and practice. Some of his recent research projects include “Analyzing Genre-Bending in Corporate Disclosure Documents” and “International Arbitration Practice: A Discourse Analytical Study,” in which he leads research teams from more than 20 countries.

Giuliana Garzone is Full Professor of English Linguistics and Translation at Università degli Studi di Milano, Italy. Her main field of investigation is specialized discourse in its different domains, which she has explored from a discourse analytical perspective, integrating it whenever necessary with computerized interrogation routines, also in light of her work on the theoretical issues involved in combining critical discourse analysis with corpus linguistics. She has co-ordinated several research projects and published extensively on legal language, scientific discourse, and business communication.

Chiara Degano is a Tenured Researcher in English Linguistics and Translation at Università degli Studi di Milano, Italy. Her research is centred on discourse analysis, which she has integrated with the quantitative approach of corpus linguistics and with aspects of argumentation theory. Within this framework, she has pursued a twofold line of research, focusing on the representation of international conflicts in the media, and on professional discourse, which she has investigated from the perspective of ideological and evaluative elements, with specific reference to issues of identity.