Foreign relations law as an interdiscursive continuum

Abstract Foreign relations law, as a genre that aims to build bridges between domestic and international law, is an understudied field in the studies of language use in legal contexts. Drawing on the method of critical genre analysis and the theory of legal speech acts, this comparative genre-pragmatic study between foreign relations laws of the U.S. and China examines foreign relations law as a master speech act and an intertextual and interdiscursive practice. Through analysis of regulative speech acts as well as the intertextual and interdiscursive elements used by drafters, the findings show that the genre of foreign relations law is an interdiscursive continuum with domestic and international legal discourse at two poles, U.S. foreign relations law leans toward the side of international legal discourse while Chinese foreign relations law demonstrates a defensive domestic law orientation, but their position on the continuum is never static but dynamic.