Work on the relation between figurative language and the law is a fairly recent trend, within legal discourse studies, linguistics, and semiotics. The work in conceptual metaphor theory, for example, is starting to unpack the underlying metaphorical and metonymic structure of legal language, producing some new and important insights into the nature of this language. Missing from this emerging line of inquiry are the views of the Neapolitan philosopher Giambattista Vico, who was the first to understand the power of figurative language in the creation of symbolic systems, like language and the law. His tripartite evolutionary model of language shows that there is not one language of the law, but three ''languages.'' By integrating Vico's model with the work in conceptual metaphor theory it will be possible to penetrate the underlying conceptual structure of legal discourse and thus lead to a more insightful science of this discourse.Keywords Vico Á Metaphor Á Metonymy Á Irony Á Conceptual metaphor theory Á Legal discourseSince the 1970s there has been a noticeable increase of interest and writing on one of the more neglected figures in the history of ideas-the Italian philosopher Giambattista Vico (1668-1744). The reason for this is, arguably, that the modern cognitive sciences are finally catching up to his ideas. Vico was interested, fundamentally, in unraveling the raison d'eˆtre of meaning structures in the human species and in how these constituted the source of cultural systems. He saw the imagination (the fantasia) as the primary faculty of mind underlying the invention of these very structures. Vico went against the Western tradition of studying the