Textul Codului Penal al lui Al. I. Cuza – expresie a tendințelor de unificare și modernizare a normelor limbii române literare

Abstract

Abstract: The 19th century represents an essential stage in the modernization of the Romanian culture, the socio-political context favoring the acceleration of the economic development and the creation of favorable conditions for the unification and modernization of the Romanian literary language.The Criminal Code of 1865 (known as the „Criminal Code of Alexandru Ioan Cuza” or „Cuza Code”) is a text of great importance not only because it carries out the criminal legislative unification, being the beginning of the modern Romanian criminal law. Analyzed from the perspective of the process of forming the functional styles of the Romanian literary language, one can find that the text marks the moment when the typological traits specific to the Romanian legal language were created.The confrontation between tradition and innovation, a dominant phenomenon in the Romanian space of the nineteenth century, has left its mark on all the specialized languages, including the legal language. This is primarily about adapting new content to traditional forms and, at the same time, enriching and diversifying existing forms of expression. The analyzed text is the conclusive expression of the contradictory character of the Romanian literary language of this period, which does not set a precise limit between the cult and the folk, as evidenced by the many archaic and popular aspects that combine with the linguistic innovations.