Mapping Stance in Data Protection Judgments: Towards an Integrated Framework for Judicial Discourse

Abstract In the digital era, the rapid expansion of studies on data protection issues has generated a wealth of interdisciplinary knowledge but has also remained fragmented and unevenly developed. Against this backdrop, this study presents a literature review of research on stance in data protection judgments, with the aim of clarifying the state of the field and identifying research gaps at the intersection of law and linguistics. Adopting an integrative review approach, the analysis focuses on three key conceptual nexuses: court judgments, stance, and data protection. The review highlights three major findings: first, stance in data protection judgments has attracted limited scholarly attention, particularly when compared with legislative texts; second, comparative analyses of stance across different jurisdictions remain scarce; and third, existing studies lack a coherent framework for connecting linguistic and legal perspectives. To address this gap, the paper proposes a tentative integrative framework that combines Hyland’s stance model with critical discourse analysis. The structure, feasibility, and applicability of this framework are discussed in the last part of the paper, which provides a reference point for future research on stance in judicial discourse.