Abstract: Abstract： Over the past 70 years since the founding of New China, legal methodology research has made great strides in system construction, knowledge innovation, upgrading of ways of thinking and shaping of rule-of-law discourse. Methodology has been an important element in Chinese jurisprudence. Legal methodology research has also gradually established the constitutive function of rules of legal thinking in the construction of the rule of law; the emphasis on logic is shaping the rule of law thinking that matches the rule of law, providing a methodological basis for the systemic construction of the socialist rule of law discourse with Chinese characteristics. The research on legal methodology over the 70 years in New China can be divided into three categories: class analysis jurisprudence featuring; comprehensive learning from the Soviet Union, skill jurisprudence featuring reasoning and interpretation methods learned from Europe and America and new era jurisprudence featuring the construction of socialist rule of law thinking and rule of law discourse based on the combination of East and West. Currently the following; problems need to be addressed: the existing legal methodology research is mainly mere integration of Western jurisprudential knowledge, principles and methods, with many research results drawing on outside experience, thus lacking originality and in-depth analysis of China’s own problems.

Key words: legal methodology, legal interpretation, legal theory, rule of law discourse, rules of legal thinking