Miriana Marcianò, 504500, Relazioni Internazionali

Analysis of Article 8 from the European Convention of Human Rights.

Article 8
Right to respect for private and family life
1. Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family
life, his home and his correspondence.
2. There shall be no interference by a public authority with the
exercise of this right except such as is in accordance with the
law and is necessary in a democratic society in the interests of
national security, public safety or the economic well-being of the
country, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection
of health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms
of others.

 This is Article 8, taken from the European Convention of Human Right. The latter is an
International Treaty, a juridical document, that determines an agreement between
European countries in terms of basic human rights. This right exists to protect private life
and correspondence and states that public authorities should not interfere with this unless
it is necessary. It was signed in Rome on the 4 th of November 1950 and later entered into
force the 3rd of September 1953.

 The 1st article of this Convention provides a frame for the others as it introduces the theme
of this section, meaning Right and Freedom of European citizens.

Grammatical Description

 Regarding the grammatical description of this transcript let us focus on the sentence
pattern present. The first sentence has an SVC structure in which we have only the
participant expressed by the pronoun “Everybody” and an attribution process with “private
and family life, his home and his correspondence”. It is of positive nature because it
represents an affirmation.

 The second sentence is more complex so it must be split into simple sentences. The first
simple clause, from “There shall be” till “right” is an SVO because we have two
participants: the agent “public authority” and the patient “exercise of this right”; it is
 negative because it uses the negation “There shall be no” and it is also an independent
one.

 From “except” till “law” we have an SVC because there is “in accordance” which is an
attribution to the noun “interference” previously mentioned. From “and” till “country” it is
an SVO where the agent is “interests”, so an inanimate object, and the patients are
“national security; public safety; economic well-being”. In this last case the agent is
unclear.

 These second simple clauses are simply subordinating, as without the main clause they
have no meaning, thus they are linked to it by the conjunction “except”.

 The clauses can be considered as declaratives that state the fact that, in the first one
everyone should have their personal life respected, and in the second that the power
system should act under certain circumstances. To add up they express an information and
therefore they have a giver, the law, and an addressee receiver, the citizens.

 Moreover, in the second sentence the modal verb “shall” expresses modality in the terms of
a mandatory act of the law. This specific article indicates an expressive modality.

 The use of the pronoun “Everyone” underlines the inclusivity and impartiality of the right.
Its use also is indefinite because law does not use direct references to a certain person,
rather it uses abstract pronouns in order to be fair.

 To give coherence and cohesion to these principles, there is the use of the logical connector
“such as” to introduce examples referring to the last idea. As well, there is the multiple use
of the coordinator “or” to link alternatives.

Vocabulary Description

 About vocabulary analysis it can be identified a word ideologically contested, meaning

“democratic society” and this is because the meaning of democracy and his society has
been contested since it has changed within historical, political, and economic conditions.
Thus, this word presents an ideological struggle owing the fact that it can presents itself in
many forms. In the case of the European Convention of Human Rights, the referred
democracy is a representative one as all European Union member states are representative
democracies; however, they do not all have the same political system.
 Furthermore, the ideological struggle can be represented by the over wording of the word
“protection” as to show preoccupation with that aspect of reality that sees a violation of
this principle.
 Regarding ideologically relations between words there are synonyms, there is the one of
“security”, meaning “safety” and “health” with “well-being”.
 The language is strictly formal, and that is because its surroundings relate to a juridical
document. There is power behind discourse because it has constraint in access. In fact, it is
a document that belongs to the higher status of society, so only people who have a proper
education can understand it fully as it has a particular language form.
Textual Description
 Regarding textual structure, knowing this is a document with a specific layout, it is possible
to find predictable themes and their order. As a matter of fact, this article is dividend in
points expressed by a number as well as other articles in this Convention. These numbers
make the reader aware of the classification of the points the article wants to put focus onto
and it differentiate them with the previous ones.