1. Legal linguistics Introduction

2. Halliday: ‘language is as it is because of what it has to do’ – a functional theory of language Meaning-making that is grounded in social practice Context – dynamic and socially constructed through and by discourse Legal world – context-rich

3. Introduction Legal texts – richly layered with meaning Legal language – evolved over many centuries and its form is a result of this history and specialised use Talk in legal contexts – intertextually linked and contextualized by a whole array of written texts (statutes, judgments, administrative texts)

4. What is legal linguistics? The study of the written language of the law The study of interaction in the legal process, which in criminal cases includes everything from an initial call to the emergency services to the sentencing of someone who has been found guilty The work of the forensic linguist when acting a an expert witness

5. Written or spoken? Some fixed-form written texts, e.g. the police caution, and Pattern Jury Instructions, are ‘performed’ or ‘verbalised’ as part of what are otherwise real-time spoken interactions In some jurisdictions, police investigative interviews are audio-or video-recorded and these recordings are transcribed into written form using ordinary orthography These written transcripts - often reconverted into speech in the courtroom Expert forensic linguists provide their evidence in both written and spoken modes

6. The language of the law Language of the law (e.g. statutes, contract) Language about the law Language used in legal communication (written and spoken)

7. The language of the law The language of legal documents – very complex Legal talk – can be remarkably complex in terms of syntax and structure; legal language – more remarkable for what it does; it has specialised institutional functions and pragmatic effects The courtroom gives us ‘legal language in its most dramatic setting’

8. The written language of the law Contracts Judgments Jury instructions Notices to people in custody Product warnings The police caution Statutes Trademarks Wills

9. Analysis of written texts Lexis Syntax Semantics Pragmatics Comprehensibility Complexity Readability

10. Language and the law ‘Our law is a law of words’ (Tiersma 1999) ‘There is no single, easy answer to the question of how legal language came to be what it is. Much of the explanation lies in a series of historical developments, each of which left its mark on the language of the law’ (Ibid.) ‘

11. Plain language movements Reform of legal language needed to protect lawyers from public criticism Legalese: complex sentences with a high degree of subordination, embedding, wordiness, conjoined phrases, impersonal constructions However – simplification can lead to under-specification which can paradoxically give more power to the judiciary to interpret the law and take it away from the people, whom the legislature represents; moreover, simplification may create misunderstanding or even transmit an erroneous message

12. Linguistic features of legal writing Binomial expressions and listing Complex prepositions Generic/cognitive structuring (two-part move structure of provision and qualification Impersonal constructions Legal archaisms Modularity Nominalisation Passive constructions Sentence length and complexity Specialized, distinctive and technical legal lexis

13. Example text No obligation, interlineation or other alteration made in any will after the execuation thereof shall be valid or have efect except so far as the words or effect of the will before such alteration shall not be apparent, unless such alteration shall be executed in like manner as hereinbefore is required, unless such alteration shall be executed in like manner as hereinbefore is required for the execution of the will; but the will, with such alteration as part thereof, shall be deemed to be duly executed if the signature of the testator and the subscription of the witnesses be made in the margin or on some other part of the will opposite or near to such alteration or at the foot or end of or opposite to a memorandum referring to such alteration and written at the end or some other part of the will (Section 16 of the Wills Act, 1970, Republic of Singapore)

14. Tensions in legal writing Vagueness – precision Ambiguity – clarity Flexibility – certainty Simplicity – inclusiveness

15. Linguistic features Long sentences – avoiding uncertainty and achieving all- inclusiveness Impersonal terms – vague, but inclusive and flexible in statutes and contracts

16. Interaction in the legal process Asymmetry Audience Context

17. Asymmetry Differences in the distribution of knowledge and social positions Includes global patterns of dominance and local properties

18. Types of dominance Quantitative dominance concerns the relation between the parties in terms of amount of talk Interactional dominance – distribution of ‘strong’ v. ‘weak’ interactional moves Semantic dominance – concerns topics sustained in the discourse and imposes the interpretative perspectives on things talked about Strategic dominance – who contributes the strategically most important interventions

19. Audience Who is speaking and to whom – important in relation to the symmetrical/asymmetrical balance Roles tied to professions and the power such roles give to institutional speakers Audience design in legal interaction Audiences for police interviews – future juries and judges; records are made for that future audience Asymmetrical power of the police interviewer and the dominance of the legal context

20. Context Asymmetries are contextualized in the ‘endogenous and exogenous conditions’ of talk, i.e. in ever widening circles, first within the dialogue, then outside the talk itself in the institutional context and then further out in the wider social context Meaning works at multiple levels in the micro-detail of sound, semantics, syntax and non-linguistic semiotics (gesture, gaze) and in the macro system of activity type, identity and institutionality. Lay individuals – always disadvantaged in institutional contexts because they lack and institutional perspective and lack knowledge of the hybrid institutional registers they encounter

21. Critical Discourse Analysis ‘discourse is a major instrument of power and control and Critical Discourse Analysts … fee that it is part of their professional role to investigate, reveaol and clarify how power and discriminatory value are inscribed i and mediated through the linguistic system. CDA is essentially political in intent with its practitioners acting on the world in order to transform it’ (Caldas-Coulthard and Coulthard 1996)

22. New discipline: Critical Forensic Linguistics Clarifying an revealing power and discriminatory values in texts through an analysis of micro- and macro- linguistic features