Course Description for Legal Translation Practice
Modified December 26, 2004
1. Course Code:
2. Course Name: Legal Translation Practice
3. Course Type: Compulsory
4. Class Hours: 2 per week; 36 in total
5. Credits: 2
6. Prerequisites: Legal English (I) & (II), E-C Translation, C-E Translation, Legal English Writing, Jurisprudence, International Business Law
7. Objectives and Requirements:This course is designed for fourth-year students of English for International Business Law with a view to helping them overcome the discrepancy between Chinese and English legal knowledge at the levels of word, terminology, sentence and discourse. Students are offered several stylistically-based lectures on legal vocabulary, typical legal sentence patterns and legal discourse. They are also offered lectures and seminars on the principles, methods and strategies on legal translation. The ultimate objective for the students is to familiarize the students with the similarities and differences between legal Chinese and legal English and the related translation rules for them so as to prepare them for top-quality translation service in idiomatic and professional legal language and even legalese.
8. Course Content:
1) First Week: Introduction to the course;
2) Second Week: Basic Knowledge of Criminal Law and Criminal Procedure Law: A Lexical Approach;
3) Third Week: Basic Knowledge of Civil Law and Civil Procedure Law: A Lexical Approach;
4) Fourth Week: Ten Types of Legal Vocabulary;
5) Fifth Week: Key Sentence Patterns in Legal English;
6) Sixth-Eighth Weeks: There will be no classes because students are away for their internship at the China Export Commodities Fair;
7) Ninth Week: Principles and Methods of Legal Translation;
8) Tenth Week: Five Discourse Types for Legal Translation;
9) Eleventh Week: Translation of Legislative Discourse;
10) Twelfth Week: Translation of Contracts and Agreements;
11) Thirteenth Week: Translation of Bill of Prosecution, Jury Instructions and/or Rulings/Judgments;
12) Fourteenth Week: Translation of Expert Witness Testimonies (DNA);
13) Fifteenth Week: Translation of Statements of Public Prosecutor and Defense Counsel;
14) Sixteenth Week: Translation of Law Reports (Quill Corp. V. North Dakota ex rel. Heitkamp);
15) Seventeenth Week: Translation of Insurance Policies;
16) Eighteenth Week: Translation of Prospectuses and Annual Reports of Listed Companies;
17) Nineteenth Week: Review;
18) Twentieth Week: Final exam.
9. Textbook:A. ZHANG, Xinhong (ed.). A Course in English-Chinese Legal Translation. Beijing: International Business and Economics Press (2005).B. Course materials compiled by the teacher(s)
10. References:
1) LI, Kexing & ZHANG Xinhong, 2004. Legal Texts and Legal Translation. Beijing: China Translation and Publishing Corporation.
2) DU, Jinbang & ZHANG Xinhong (ed.), 2002-04. Core Course in English for Law (Books 1, 2 and 3). Beijing: International Business and Economics Press (2002-2004).
3) HE, Jiahong, 1998. Legal English. Beijing: Law Press.
4) HUANG, Weixin & Paul Livesey,1998. An Introduction to English Style and Rhetoric. Beijing: Police Officer Education Press.
5) QIN, Xiubai, 1995. Introduction to Stylistics. Changsha: Hunan Education Press.
11. Assessment: Participation, course assignments and projects (40%) + Terminal Examination (60%)
2007年10月21日星期日
The Language of Confession, Interrogation and Deception
Adapted from Forensic Linguistics by Zhang Xinhong
The Language of Confession, Interrogation and Deception is the second
offering in the Sage Empirical Linguistics Series, which focuses on .the
actual utterances of real people as the basis for study.. The .real people.
analyzed by Roger Shuy are some of the hundreds of suspects for whom
he has acted as a defence expert witness over the past thirty years. In the
form of a retrospective memoir chronicling his extensive career in court,
Shuy recounts numerous examples of confession, interrogation and deception
in a series of detailed case studies.
Shuy is critical of the methods of interrogation employed by some US
law enforcement officers and is sceptical about the confessions which
are sometimes elicited. While acknowledging that .it would be grossly
unfair to law enforcement on the whole to give the impression that the
cases cited here are representative of general practice. (p. 174), Shuy
nevertheless provides the reader with ample evidence of the dangers of
ineffective interrogation, and crucially, the implications and consequences
for the suspect. Out of eleven cases described in the book, where Shuy
believed that linguistic evidence of various kinds was sufficient to constitute
.reasonable doubt., no fewer than eight suspects were convicted
(mainly of murder) and are now serving long prison sentences in the US.
The author questions the attitude of the judiciary to forensic linguistic
evidence; in several of the cases, his evidence was either judged inadmissible
or was subsequently discredited by the judge during the trial.
The arguments presented in this book are essentially twofold: first,
that the field of forensic linguistics, despite its current limitations, has
much to offer the world of law enforcement, both in the promotion of
good practice in the questioning of suspects and in ensuring that confessions are elicited fairly and effectively. Shuy echoes Robin Lakoff .s view
that .after decades of apathy, the legal profession seems to have woken
up to the realisation that linguistics . has for them bottom-line practical
utility: it could help them win (or lose) cases. (Lakoff 1995). Second,
the author claims that law enforcement and the judiciary must be encouraged
to take forensic linguistic evidence seriously if the profession is
to become more firmly established. The book serves as a timely reminder
not only of how far the field has evolved in its relatively short existence,
but also of the methodological, ethical and practical dilemmas still faced
by researchers and practitioners. As Shuy states in Chapter 3, Language
and Constitutional Rights, .perhaps the use of linguistic expertise in the
area of law is still too new for some courts, but the Moffat case clearly
points to its usefulness. (p. 66).
The book is divided into eleven chapters, adopting a speech act theory
approach throughout, in much the same way as in his 1993 book (Language
Crimes). The book.s title, however, seems to promote a slightly
artificial division; as Shuy points out, .because the confession event occurs
primarily as a part of a police interrogation, this book addresses
confession as part of such interrogations ... the themes of interrogation
strategies and veracity recur throughout the confession cases here. (p. 6).
Thus, although chapters are divided under headings such as .Language
of the Police Interrogation. and .Language of Truthfulness and Deception
., the case study entitled .Was Chris Jerue lying?. appears in the chapter
on police interrogation, despite the fact that it deals primarily with the
issue of the veracity (or otherwise) of Jerue.s responses. Furthermore, the
book appears to be slightly unbalanced, devoting only one chapter each
to police interrogations and to truthfulness and deception, but four chapters
to the various types of confession (written, implicational, inferred
and unvalidated respectively). This makes the book rather difficult to
navigate at times, despite a reasonably full index. It would also be useful
to have an index of legal citations for ease of reference.
The book begins with an examination of the concept of the .confession
. event in an anecdotal introduction where Shuy accuses traditional
speech act theory of failing to account adequately for this type of postevent
speech act. This initial chapter also includes a discussion of the
police interrogation, likening it to other highly-structured, power-asymmetrical
communication events such as classroom interaction and doctor-
patient interviews. Shuy makes a useful distinction between the police
interview . intended primarily for information gathering . and the
interrogation, which is more concerned with eliciting confessions of guilt
and incrimination.
This difference is a theme which is further developed in Chapter 2,
Language of The Police Interrogation. Here Shuy outlines and criticises
the basis on which police interviews are presently carried out. He is particularly
critical of the reductive nature of many US police training manuals, which base guilt or innocence on simplistic cues such as a lack of
eye contact, ignoring cultural variation, and which rely on the application
of .amateur psychology. to the interpretation of responses such as
.I don.t remember. which are often seen as incriminating. He also underlines
the need for further research into which linguistic and paralinguistic
variables, if clustered, may be primary indicators in determining
guilt or innocence. Shuy is, however, sensibly cautious about the value
of such indicators, describing them as .at best, merely supportive features
to an already formed idea. (p. 49). Finally, he argues that defence
attorneys, who tend to concentrate on proving inconsistency of response
and misleading questions, are theoretically in a stronger position than
the prosecution, who seek to identify deceptive language which is both
unscientific and difficult to substantiate. Shuy then provides three illustrative
case studies which explore various related issues: police inconsistencies
between statements and testimony (Steve Allen); the problem of
interpreting responses to complex, embedded questions (Chris Jerue);
and the reliability of the technique of .co-mingling., whereby an interview
is stopped at intervals and the subjects write down the relevant part
of the statement (Donald Goltz).
The Language of Confession, Interrogation and Deception is the second
offering in the Sage Empirical Linguistics Series, which focuses on .the
actual utterances of real people as the basis for study.. The .real people.
analyzed by Roger Shuy are some of the hundreds of suspects for whom
he has acted as a defence expert witness over the past thirty years. In the
form of a retrospective memoir chronicling his extensive career in court,
Shuy recounts numerous examples of confession, interrogation and deception
in a series of detailed case studies.
Shuy is critical of the methods of interrogation employed by some US
law enforcement officers and is sceptical about the confessions which
are sometimes elicited. While acknowledging that .it would be grossly
unfair to law enforcement on the whole to give the impression that the
cases cited here are representative of general practice. (p. 174), Shuy
nevertheless provides the reader with ample evidence of the dangers of
ineffective interrogation, and crucially, the implications and consequences
for the suspect. Out of eleven cases described in the book, where Shuy
believed that linguistic evidence of various kinds was sufficient to constitute
.reasonable doubt., no fewer than eight suspects were convicted
(mainly of murder) and are now serving long prison sentences in the US.
The author questions the attitude of the judiciary to forensic linguistic
evidence; in several of the cases, his evidence was either judged inadmissible
or was subsequently discredited by the judge during the trial.
The arguments presented in this book are essentially twofold: first,
that the field of forensic linguistics, despite its current limitations, has
much to offer the world of law enforcement, both in the promotion of
good practice in the questioning of suspects and in ensuring that confessions are elicited fairly and effectively. Shuy echoes Robin Lakoff .s view
that .after decades of apathy, the legal profession seems to have woken
up to the realisation that linguistics . has for them bottom-line practical
utility: it could help them win (or lose) cases. (Lakoff 1995). Second,
the author claims that law enforcement and the judiciary must be encouraged
to take forensic linguistic evidence seriously if the profession is
to become more firmly established. The book serves as a timely reminder
not only of how far the field has evolved in its relatively short existence,
but also of the methodological, ethical and practical dilemmas still faced
by researchers and practitioners. As Shuy states in Chapter 3, Language
and Constitutional Rights, .perhaps the use of linguistic expertise in the
area of law is still too new for some courts, but the Moffat case clearly
points to its usefulness. (p. 66).
The book is divided into eleven chapters, adopting a speech act theory
approach throughout, in much the same way as in his 1993 book (Language
Crimes). The book.s title, however, seems to promote a slightly
artificial division; as Shuy points out, .because the confession event occurs
primarily as a part of a police interrogation, this book addresses
confession as part of such interrogations ... the themes of interrogation
strategies and veracity recur throughout the confession cases here. (p. 6).
Thus, although chapters are divided under headings such as .Language
of the Police Interrogation. and .Language of Truthfulness and Deception
., the case study entitled .Was Chris Jerue lying?. appears in the chapter
on police interrogation, despite the fact that it deals primarily with the
issue of the veracity (or otherwise) of Jerue.s responses. Furthermore, the
book appears to be slightly unbalanced, devoting only one chapter each
to police interrogations and to truthfulness and deception, but four chapters
to the various types of confession (written, implicational, inferred
and unvalidated respectively). This makes the book rather difficult to
navigate at times, despite a reasonably full index. It would also be useful
to have an index of legal citations for ease of reference.
The book begins with an examination of the concept of the .confession
. event in an anecdotal introduction where Shuy accuses traditional
speech act theory of failing to account adequately for this type of postevent
speech act. This initial chapter also includes a discussion of the
police interrogation, likening it to other highly-structured, power-asymmetrical
communication events such as classroom interaction and doctor-
patient interviews. Shuy makes a useful distinction between the police
interview . intended primarily for information gathering . and the
interrogation, which is more concerned with eliciting confessions of guilt
and incrimination.
This difference is a theme which is further developed in Chapter 2,
Language of The Police Interrogation. Here Shuy outlines and criticises
the basis on which police interviews are presently carried out. He is particularly
critical of the reductive nature of many US police training manuals, which base guilt or innocence on simplistic cues such as a lack of
eye contact, ignoring cultural variation, and which rely on the application
of .amateur psychology. to the interpretation of responses such as
.I don.t remember. which are often seen as incriminating. He also underlines
the need for further research into which linguistic and paralinguistic
variables, if clustered, may be primary indicators in determining
guilt or innocence. Shuy is, however, sensibly cautious about the value
of such indicators, describing them as .at best, merely supportive features
to an already formed idea. (p. 49). Finally, he argues that defence
attorneys, who tend to concentrate on proving inconsistency of response
and misleading questions, are theoretically in a stronger position than
the prosecution, who seek to identify deceptive language which is both
unscientific and difficult to substantiate. Shuy then provides three illustrative
case studies which explore various related issues: police inconsistencies
between statements and testimony (Steve Allen); the problem of
interpreting responses to complex, embedded questions (Chris Jerue);
and the reliability of the technique of .co-mingling., whereby an interview
is stopped at intervals and the subjects write down the relevant part
of the statement (Donald Goltz).
Review of Just Words Law, Language and Power
THE FIELD OF LAW AND LANGUAGE
The collaboration for nearly twenty-five years of a professor of law, John Conley, and a professor of anthropology, William O.Barr, at Duke University, has yielded some of the most well-known and ground-breaking work in studies of language and the law. This fruitful partnership has resulted in a seminal new book Just Words: Law, Language and Power (hereafter JW), which may well mark the coming-of-age of the area of scholarship which the authors term .law and language. What constitutes the field of .law and language? For Conley and O.Barr (hereafter C&O.B) it is the merger of the two traditions of sociolinguistics and law and society (or sociolegal scholarship). The former began to incorporate the language of the law into its studies in the 1970s, and the latter began to concern itself with language in legal settings at about the same time.
However, not everyone would agree with the authors’ delineation of the field of .law and language. in this way. For example, Levi’s important 1994 bibliographic guide to social science research on .language and law. in the USA indicates that studies of language in legal settings to date have covered all the major areas of linguistics (phonetics and phonology, morphology and syntax, semantics and pragmatics, sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics and discourse analysis, including conversational analysis).
Although Levi uses the term .language and law. (cf. C&O.B .law and language.), C&O.B imply that they and Levi are talking about the same .field. (p. 5). This appears also to be the same field that is called by many scholars .forensic linguistics’, as exemplified in the title of this journal and the International Association of Forensic Linguistics (IAFL). Discussion over the use of this fairly new term at IAFL conferences, and on the forensic-linguistics e-mail discussion list, indicates that it is being conventionally used in its broadest sense to refer to linguistic studies of language in legal settings (in the same way as Levi’s .language and law.) and in its narrow sense to refer to the use of linguistic analysis as expert evidence in court.
Actually, C&O.B are not excluding any type of linguistic analysis in their field of law and language, but they see sociolinguistics at the core, because their focus is on .the most important theoretical issue in law and language: the use of linguistic methods to understand the nature of law and legal power. (p. 6).
Despite indicating that their .law and language. field is the same as Levi’s .language and law., they are also in effect calling for something new: namely the merger of law and society studies and sociolinguistics’ In outlining the approaches of these two areas, C&O.B point to how the weaknesses of each approach can be addressed by their merger. Sociolinguists are increasingly making observations about the social contexts of language, without answering the ‘so what?. questions’ And the field of law and society has been ‘so successful in its basic objectives [of showing how law really works in practice] that additional instances of biases and shortcomings often serve more to underscore what has come to be general knowledge than to produce genuinely new insights about how law works’ (p. 12).
So in merging the two fields, C&O.B are in effect arguing for a synergy: a new approach emerging from the combination of aspects of the two fields’ First, there is the sociolinguistic attention to detailed microanalysis of actual language in its context (also found in studies in the disciplines of conversational analysis and ethnomethodology). Second, there is law and society’s analysis, usually at the macro level, of how the law .fails to deliver on its biggest promises, especially the equal treatment of all citizens’. The focus of this new approach, resulting from the combination of these two fields, is on discovering .how the power of law actually operates in everyday legal settings’ (p. 14).
PATRIARCHY IN THE LAW
Readers of earlier work by the authors may be surprised to see that a recurring theme of this book is the patriarchal nature of law, with which their previous writings have not been much concerned, but which has been a major focus of sociolegal scholarship. In this new book, C&O.B develop a forceful argument about how the law enacts patriarchal domination, bringing together evidence from four seemingly disparate areas of research in language and the law, and developing a thought-provoking argument. These areas of research are:
l the revictimization of rape victims in courtrooms (ch. 2),
l the seeming gender bias in the way in which mediation works (ch. 3),
l stylistic variation in the speech of witnesses (ch. 4), and
l the logic of legal accounts by litigants in small claims courts (ch. 4)
In Chapter 2 the authors rely primarily on the impressive work of the sociologist Matoesian (1993, 1995) whose detailed conversational analysis of the courtroom revictimization of rape victims, situated in a broader analysis of the power dynamics of rape, exemplifies exactly the kind of research called for in JW.
C&O.B’s reflection on Matoesian’s work concludes that the linguistic strategies analysed are in fact not unique to rape trials: .they are all strategies of domination. common to cross-examination (p. 32). What is most poignant in the rape trial is that .they are strategies of domination employed in the service of one accused of domination.(p. 32). Despite apparent breakthroughs in law reform (e.g. with rape shield laws), women continue to be dominated, even while giving prosecution evidence as victims of rape.
Turning to an area where law reform has recently moved some dispute resolution out of the courtroom, C&O.B examine the language of mediation, particularly in divorce proceedings, in Chapter 3. They argue for the use of microlinguistic analysis to examine the contention that this process is still subject to manipulation by the powerful, and that as a result, many women are losing out. While such a claim is being made at the level of macro-discourse, the first substantiations at the level of micro-analysis are very telling, and the authors draw here on the work of Garcia (1995) and Greatbatch and Dingwall (1989). While this work shows some linguistic strategies which are used by mediators to dominate one party, the evidence is by no means conclusive that this bias is consistently against women, and C&O.B recognize the need for more study. However, in the spirit of drawing together strands of macro and micro analysis from disparate areas of language and the law research, the authors briefly discuss .a convergence of circumstantial evidence in support of the claim that mediation disadvantages women. (p. 58). Although mediation is widely considered to be .a good thing., C&O.B consider it open to the charge of being a .tool for oppressing women. (p. 58) and their prediction is that the powerlessness of women will be increased by its use. This prediction contextualizes in an immediately practical way the responsibility of researchers to further investigate this area, and demonstrates the significant implications which could flow not only for research on language and law, and language and gender, but also for addressing continuing inequity in the legal process’
In Chapter 4 (‘speaking of Patriarchy.) C&O.B revisit their own most comprehensive earlier empirical research in further support of their argument for microlinguistic analysis of the way that the law continually reproduces women’s powerlessness’
Their early ground-breaking research on language variation in the speaking style of witnesses (eg Conley, O.Barr and Lind 1978; O.Barr and Atkins 1980; O.Barr 1982) has had considerable impact on the language and gender literature. In this 1970s study Conley and O.Barr, and their colleagues in the Duke University Law and Language Project, highlighted the fact that the features of speaking style attributed by Lakoff (1975) to women are used by both men and women in their courtroom study. They emphasized that it is not gender which is the determining variable but the speaker’s status in society and situational power, and they renamed Lakoff ‘s .women’s language. as .powerless language.. In a similar way their more recent research on the logic of litigants’ accounts in small claims courts downplayed ‘social variables’ such as gender, race and ethnicity (see Conley and O.Barr 1990: 79). Their study found that litigants differed according to whether they formulated and expressed their problems to the court in a rule-oriented or a relational approach. While their analysis does include a little discussion of Gilligan ‘s (1982) work on male and female moral reasoning patterns, in this 1990 study they are quite cautious in attributing any primacy to gender in the explanation of the differentiation between rule-oriented and relationship- oriented litigants, claiming that gender alone can not account for the complex patterning they found.
But in JW they contextualize both of these earlier studies within the bigger picture of sociolegal studies which argues that there are many ways in which the law is unarguably patriarchal. C&O.B say that they did not realize at the time of their earlier research that it has .important implications for understanding the subtle workings of the law’s patriarchy . (p. 65).
In their 1970s study C&O.B and their colleagues had acknowledged that women appear to use powerless language more frequently than men, and they suggested that this is due .at least in part, to the greater tendency of women to occupy relatively powerless social positions’ (O.Barr and Atkins 1980: 104). In revisiting this study in JW, C&O.B examine the implications of this relationship between speaking style, gender and power in a more critical way. They argue that the fact that the legal system gives less credence to those who speak in a powerless style, and that men are more likely to have learned a powerful speech style than women, indicates .a manifestation of the law’s patriarchy at the most elemental linguistic level. (p. 75). In this stimulating re-examination of the issue of powerless and powerful language, the circle is completed: in their 1970s study they renamed women’s language as powerless language, and in JW they say that powerful language is .a distinctively male style. (p. 63).
And in discussing their small claims courts research in JW, C&O.B move from the recognition that the rules-versus-relationships dichotomy implicates some common gender stereotypes, acknowledging that there is a tendency for rule-oriented litigants to be male and relational litigants to be female. The ability to use rule-oriented accounts is an acquired skill, they assert, in which the acquisition depends on exposure to the culture of business and law. As it is largely men who have had access to these domains, and it is predominantly rule-oriented accounts which are preferred in litigation, then it follows, indirectly, that .relational litigants . which often means women . .have a harder time gaining access to justice than do their rule-oriented counterparts’ (p. 73).
Thus in Chapter 4, their re-analysis of their earlier studies in a more critical perspective leads them to conclude that .legal patriarchy, in the sense of favoring male interests, is realized in the linguistic details of courtroom interactions’ (p. 75). The argument is that the patriarchy of the law is realized and enacted in indirect but powerful ways’ Through the law taking typically male ways of interacting as the norm, and privileging them, women are dominated in these different ways in various legal contexts’ It is the active way in which this domination is carried out which is the focus of JW, and C&O.B make a strong case that microlinguistic analysis is central to the illumination of the process of how our society enacts patriarchy through the law.
Despite being first engaged and then basically convinced by their argument, I wanted more detailed evidence to substantiate some of C&O.B’s claims’ This was particularly so with regard to their conclusion in JW that what they had convincingly analysed in their 1970s study as powerful language is .a distinctively male style. (p. 63). In JW the argument is based on indirect evidence, as discussed above, that this powerful language style is both learned and used by the powerful, who are predominantly men. I felt that their argument could have benefited from some consideration of recent developments in sociolinguistic studies of male and female language/speech styles, much of which is based on microlinguistic analysis (e.g. Holmes 1995; Coates 1989; Tannen 1993). Of particular relevance would seem to be the recent adoption of a social constructionist approach which argues that the dichotomous male-female categories are inadequate and inaccurate (e.g. Schiffrin 1996; Holmes 1997), and which uses microlinguistic analysis to show .the diverse realizations of the dynamic dimensions of masculinity and femininity. (Holmes 1997: 217). For example, how does the literature which identifies a more co-operative style as more feminine and a competitive style as more masculine (e.g. Aries 1996; Coates 1997) relate to C&O.B’s analysis of relational versus rule-oriented litigants (shown in their 1990 study to be a continuum, a finding seemingly not included in this briefer discussion in JW)? I look forward to further discussion of this issue, by scholars more expert in this area than myself.
A related concern is that C&O.B’s use of the term .distinctively male style. appears to imply a gender-exclusive speech style, yet on the basis of their own work it is clearly gender-preferential rather than genderexclusive.
The collaboration for nearly twenty-five years of a professor of law, John Conley, and a professor of anthropology, William O.Barr, at Duke University, has yielded some of the most well-known and ground-breaking work in studies of language and the law. This fruitful partnership has resulted in a seminal new book Just Words: Law, Language and Power (hereafter JW), which may well mark the coming-of-age of the area of scholarship which the authors term .law and language. What constitutes the field of .law and language? For Conley and O.Barr (hereafter C&O.B) it is the merger of the two traditions of sociolinguistics and law and society (or sociolegal scholarship). The former began to incorporate the language of the law into its studies in the 1970s, and the latter began to concern itself with language in legal settings at about the same time.
However, not everyone would agree with the authors’ delineation of the field of .law and language. in this way. For example, Levi’s important 1994 bibliographic guide to social science research on .language and law. in the USA indicates that studies of language in legal settings to date have covered all the major areas of linguistics (phonetics and phonology, morphology and syntax, semantics and pragmatics, sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics and discourse analysis, including conversational analysis).
Although Levi uses the term .language and law. (cf. C&O.B .law and language.), C&O.B imply that they and Levi are talking about the same .field. (p. 5). This appears also to be the same field that is called by many scholars .forensic linguistics’, as exemplified in the title of this journal and the International Association of Forensic Linguistics (IAFL). Discussion over the use of this fairly new term at IAFL conferences, and on the forensic-linguistics e-mail discussion list, indicates that it is being conventionally used in its broadest sense to refer to linguistic studies of language in legal settings (in the same way as Levi’s .language and law.) and in its narrow sense to refer to the use of linguistic analysis as expert evidence in court.
Actually, C&O.B are not excluding any type of linguistic analysis in their field of law and language, but they see sociolinguistics at the core, because their focus is on .the most important theoretical issue in law and language: the use of linguistic methods to understand the nature of law and legal power. (p. 6).
Despite indicating that their .law and language. field is the same as Levi’s .language and law., they are also in effect calling for something new: namely the merger of law and society studies and sociolinguistics’ In outlining the approaches of these two areas, C&O.B point to how the weaknesses of each approach can be addressed by their merger. Sociolinguists are increasingly making observations about the social contexts of language, without answering the ‘so what?. questions’ And the field of law and society has been ‘so successful in its basic objectives [of showing how law really works in practice] that additional instances of biases and shortcomings often serve more to underscore what has come to be general knowledge than to produce genuinely new insights about how law works’ (p. 12).
So in merging the two fields, C&O.B are in effect arguing for a synergy: a new approach emerging from the combination of aspects of the two fields’ First, there is the sociolinguistic attention to detailed microanalysis of actual language in its context (also found in studies in the disciplines of conversational analysis and ethnomethodology). Second, there is law and society’s analysis, usually at the macro level, of how the law .fails to deliver on its biggest promises, especially the equal treatment of all citizens’. The focus of this new approach, resulting from the combination of these two fields, is on discovering .how the power of law actually operates in everyday legal settings’ (p. 14).
PATRIARCHY IN THE LAW
Readers of earlier work by the authors may be surprised to see that a recurring theme of this book is the patriarchal nature of law, with which their previous writings have not been much concerned, but which has been a major focus of sociolegal scholarship. In this new book, C&O.B develop a forceful argument about how the law enacts patriarchal domination, bringing together evidence from four seemingly disparate areas of research in language and the law, and developing a thought-provoking argument. These areas of research are:
l the revictimization of rape victims in courtrooms (ch. 2),
l the seeming gender bias in the way in which mediation works (ch. 3),
l stylistic variation in the speech of witnesses (ch. 4), and
l the logic of legal accounts by litigants in small claims courts (ch. 4)
In Chapter 2 the authors rely primarily on the impressive work of the sociologist Matoesian (1993, 1995) whose detailed conversational analysis of the courtroom revictimization of rape victims, situated in a broader analysis of the power dynamics of rape, exemplifies exactly the kind of research called for in JW.
C&O.B’s reflection on Matoesian’s work concludes that the linguistic strategies analysed are in fact not unique to rape trials: .they are all strategies of domination. common to cross-examination (p. 32). What is most poignant in the rape trial is that .they are strategies of domination employed in the service of one accused of domination.(p. 32). Despite apparent breakthroughs in law reform (e.g. with rape shield laws), women continue to be dominated, even while giving prosecution evidence as victims of rape.
Turning to an area where law reform has recently moved some dispute resolution out of the courtroom, C&O.B examine the language of mediation, particularly in divorce proceedings, in Chapter 3. They argue for the use of microlinguistic analysis to examine the contention that this process is still subject to manipulation by the powerful, and that as a result, many women are losing out. While such a claim is being made at the level of macro-discourse, the first substantiations at the level of micro-analysis are very telling, and the authors draw here on the work of Garcia (1995) and Greatbatch and Dingwall (1989). While this work shows some linguistic strategies which are used by mediators to dominate one party, the evidence is by no means conclusive that this bias is consistently against women, and C&O.B recognize the need for more study. However, in the spirit of drawing together strands of macro and micro analysis from disparate areas of language and the law research, the authors briefly discuss .a convergence of circumstantial evidence in support of the claim that mediation disadvantages women. (p. 58). Although mediation is widely considered to be .a good thing., C&O.B consider it open to the charge of being a .tool for oppressing women. (p. 58) and their prediction is that the powerlessness of women will be increased by its use. This prediction contextualizes in an immediately practical way the responsibility of researchers to further investigate this area, and demonstrates the significant implications which could flow not only for research on language and law, and language and gender, but also for addressing continuing inequity in the legal process’
In Chapter 4 (‘speaking of Patriarchy.) C&O.B revisit their own most comprehensive earlier empirical research in further support of their argument for microlinguistic analysis of the way that the law continually reproduces women’s powerlessness’
Their early ground-breaking research on language variation in the speaking style of witnesses (eg Conley, O.Barr and Lind 1978; O.Barr and Atkins 1980; O.Barr 1982) has had considerable impact on the language and gender literature. In this 1970s study Conley and O.Barr, and their colleagues in the Duke University Law and Language Project, highlighted the fact that the features of speaking style attributed by Lakoff (1975) to women are used by both men and women in their courtroom study. They emphasized that it is not gender which is the determining variable but the speaker’s status in society and situational power, and they renamed Lakoff ‘s .women’s language. as .powerless language.. In a similar way their more recent research on the logic of litigants’ accounts in small claims courts downplayed ‘social variables’ such as gender, race and ethnicity (see Conley and O.Barr 1990: 79). Their study found that litigants differed according to whether they formulated and expressed their problems to the court in a rule-oriented or a relational approach. While their analysis does include a little discussion of Gilligan ‘s (1982) work on male and female moral reasoning patterns, in this 1990 study they are quite cautious in attributing any primacy to gender in the explanation of the differentiation between rule-oriented and relationship- oriented litigants, claiming that gender alone can not account for the complex patterning they found.
But in JW they contextualize both of these earlier studies within the bigger picture of sociolegal studies which argues that there are many ways in which the law is unarguably patriarchal. C&O.B say that they did not realize at the time of their earlier research that it has .important implications for understanding the subtle workings of the law’s patriarchy . (p. 65).
In their 1970s study C&O.B and their colleagues had acknowledged that women appear to use powerless language more frequently than men, and they suggested that this is due .at least in part, to the greater tendency of women to occupy relatively powerless social positions’ (O.Barr and Atkins 1980: 104). In revisiting this study in JW, C&O.B examine the implications of this relationship between speaking style, gender and power in a more critical way. They argue that the fact that the legal system gives less credence to those who speak in a powerless style, and that men are more likely to have learned a powerful speech style than women, indicates .a manifestation of the law’s patriarchy at the most elemental linguistic level. (p. 75). In this stimulating re-examination of the issue of powerless and powerful language, the circle is completed: in their 1970s study they renamed women’s language as powerless language, and in JW they say that powerful language is .a distinctively male style. (p. 63).
And in discussing their small claims courts research in JW, C&O.B move from the recognition that the rules-versus-relationships dichotomy implicates some common gender stereotypes, acknowledging that there is a tendency for rule-oriented litigants to be male and relational litigants to be female. The ability to use rule-oriented accounts is an acquired skill, they assert, in which the acquisition depends on exposure to the culture of business and law. As it is largely men who have had access to these domains, and it is predominantly rule-oriented accounts which are preferred in litigation, then it follows, indirectly, that .relational litigants . which often means women . .have a harder time gaining access to justice than do their rule-oriented counterparts’ (p. 73).
Thus in Chapter 4, their re-analysis of their earlier studies in a more critical perspective leads them to conclude that .legal patriarchy, in the sense of favoring male interests, is realized in the linguistic details of courtroom interactions’ (p. 75). The argument is that the patriarchy of the law is realized and enacted in indirect but powerful ways’ Through the law taking typically male ways of interacting as the norm, and privileging them, women are dominated in these different ways in various legal contexts’ It is the active way in which this domination is carried out which is the focus of JW, and C&O.B make a strong case that microlinguistic analysis is central to the illumination of the process of how our society enacts patriarchy through the law.
Despite being first engaged and then basically convinced by their argument, I wanted more detailed evidence to substantiate some of C&O.B’s claims’ This was particularly so with regard to their conclusion in JW that what they had convincingly analysed in their 1970s study as powerful language is .a distinctively male style. (p. 63). In JW the argument is based on indirect evidence, as discussed above, that this powerful language style is both learned and used by the powerful, who are predominantly men. I felt that their argument could have benefited from some consideration of recent developments in sociolinguistic studies of male and female language/speech styles, much of which is based on microlinguistic analysis (e.g. Holmes 1995; Coates 1989; Tannen 1993). Of particular relevance would seem to be the recent adoption of a social constructionist approach which argues that the dichotomous male-female categories are inadequate and inaccurate (e.g. Schiffrin 1996; Holmes 1997), and which uses microlinguistic analysis to show .the diverse realizations of the dynamic dimensions of masculinity and femininity. (Holmes 1997: 217). For example, how does the literature which identifies a more co-operative style as more feminine and a competitive style as more masculine (e.g. Aries 1996; Coates 1997) relate to C&O.B’s analysis of relational versus rule-oriented litigants (shown in their 1990 study to be a continuum, a finding seemingly not included in this briefer discussion in JW)? I look forward to further discussion of this issue, by scholars more expert in this area than myself.
A related concern is that C&O.B’s use of the term .distinctively male style. appears to imply a gender-exclusive speech style, yet on the basis of their own work it is clearly gender-preferential rather than genderexclusive.
Review of Just Words Law, Language and Power
DISPUTING: NATURAL HISTORY, CROSS-CULTURAL AND
HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES
DISPUTING: NATURAL HISTORY, CROSS-CULTURAL ANDHISTORICAL PERSPECTIVESIn the remaining three substantive chapters of the book, C&O.B address three further areas in which language and law scholarship has been focused, again highlighting the role for microlinguistic analysis in understanding how the macrodiscourse of the legal system operates’Chapter 5, .A Natural history of disputing., examines several studies which have analysed different types of dispute, and provides another example of how this book .challenge[s] existing ways of thinking about legal processes by paying closer attention to their linguistic details’ (p. 97). Taking the logical model of disputes developed by Felstiner, Abel and Sarat (1980), C&O.B add Pomerantz’s (1978) and Jefferson’s (1980, 1985, 1988) conversational analysis approach, as well as some of their own linguistic and ethnographic research, to develop a new model of disputes, which they term .a natural history of disputing..In Chapter 6, .The discourses of law in a cross-cultural perspective., C&O.B .take on. legal anthropology, arguing that the ethnography which is at the basis of legal anthropology is often not linguistically rich enough to support the claims made. They illustrate this concern by drawing primarily on the work of Goldman (1986, 1993) with the Huli in Papua New Guinea. In particular they highlight Goldman’s analysis of the traditional legal process which ensued over the death of a woman, particularly villagers’ arguments over whether or not the death had been accidental. Goldman’s detailed linguistic analysis enables him to contradict the widely held anthropological view that non-Western societies do not have notions of accident. .Goldman’s linguistic analysis suggests an alternative presumption: that all cultures have notions of accident but use different linguistic strategies to express them. (p. 113).Chapter 7, .The Discourses of Law in Historical Perspective., uses two examples to show how linguistic analysis of archival historical material enables the examination of .how legal power was exercized and reproduced in other times’ (p. 116). These two examples are Davis’ (1987) study of the requests for pardons submitted to the King of France in the sixteenth century for convicted felons, and Evans Grubbs’ (1995) analysis of legislation pertaining to marriage and the family in early fourthcentury Rome. C&O.B summarize these studies showing how .historians working with tests from past societies make the same point that [they] have made throughout the book: that society’s big picture . its macrodiscourse . is best understood by examining the little details of a society’s linguistic practice . its microdiscourse. (p. 128).
CONCLUSIONThe final chapter recapitulates the main theme of the book, and briefly discusses Sheldon and Johnson’s (1994) study of children’s acquisition of disputing discourse as well as Mertz’s (1996, nd) study of the .fundamentally linguistic process’ of legal education. JW concludes in a very practical way, showing how .microlinguistic analysis is an extraordinary tool for studying social problems’ (p. 138). The authors briefly describe an interdisciplinary discourse-based ethnographic study of the state of the adversary system which they and other social scientists have been invited to carry out by members of the Colorado Bar: .we and the other researchers share the general perception that the adversary system is out of control and hope that our work can conBook tribute to its diagnosis and treatment. More broadly, we hope that other people responsible for law reform will also come to appreciate that intelligent and effective efforts to improve legal practice require a great deal of sensitivity to the language that constitutes the practice.. (p. 138)
SUMMARY EVALUATIONJW is a very nicely produced, inexpensive book, and its clear organization and pithy writing style, combined with the absence of typographical errors, make this book very readable. Each chapter presents summaries of important research, which are bound to entice many readers to read the original works’ Following critical analysis of the work they summarize, C&O.B provide thought-provoking chapter conclusions, to which this review can not do justice.Although the authors say (p. 6) that JW is not intended as a textbook, they do hope that it can ‘serve as the core of a law and language class’, which in my usage would mean that it is a set textbook, but not the only one. While it does not cover the whole field of law and language/language and law, and is unlikely to deal with all the topics a teacher would want to include, it gives cohesion and direction to the field, and cogently demonstrates how .the law and language field [is] sending a coherent message about law, language and power. (p. 5).In addition, Chapters 2.5, which make up nearly half the book, will be of considerable interest beyond the field of language and the law, to students and scholars of language and gender.Not everyone will be entirely satisfied with Just Words’ Being short, it does not cover all possibly relevant topics, and being eclectic as well, it does not try to deal with all research in the topics it does cover. And some readers will undoubtedly want more bibliographic references to substantiate some of the claims made. To my mind the disadvantage caused by an arguable lack of comprehensive treatment of some of their topics is generally outweighed by the advantage of the clear, crisp and uncluttered presentation of the central argument of the book: that .the details of legal discourse matter. (p. 129).Students and scholars of language and law/forensic linguistics, sociolinguistics, legal studies, sociology, anthropology and gender studies will enjoy this book. More specifically, those of us in the area defined by C&O.B as law and language have in this inspiring book the articulation of an important unifying theme and a clear conceptual framework in which to situate future research.
REFERENCESAries, E. (1996) Men and Women in Interaction, Oxford: Oxford UniversityPress’Coates, J.(1989) .Gossip revisited: language in all-female groups’, in J. Coatesand D. Cameron (eds) Women in their Speech Communities, London:Longman, 94.122.Coates, J. (1997) Women Talk, Oxford: Blackwell.Conley, J. M. and O.Barr, W. M. (1990) Rules versus Relationships, Chicago:University of Chicago Press’Conley, J. M., O.Barr, W. M. and Lind, E. A. (1978) .The power of language:Presentational style in the courtroom., Duke Law Journal, 78: 1375.99.Davis, N. (1987) Fiction in the Archives: pardon tales and their tellers insixteenth-century France, Palo Alto, Calif: Stanford University Press’Evans Grubbs, J. (1995) Law and Family in Late Antiquity: The EmperorConstantine’s marriage legislation, New York: Oxford University Press’Felstiner W., Abel, R. and Sarat, A. (1980.1) .The emergence and transformationof disputes: naming, blaming, claiming...., Law and Society Review,15: 631.54.Garcia, A. (1995) .The problematics of representation in community mediationhearings: implications for mediation practice., Journal of Sociology and SocialWelfare, 22: 23.46.Gilligan, C. (1982) In a Different Voice: psychological theory and women’sdevelopment, Cambridge: Harvard University Press’Goldman, L. (1986) .A case of .questions’ and the .questions’ of case., Text,6: 345.92.Goldman, L. (1993) The Culture of Co-incidence: accident and absolute liabilityon Huli, New York: Clarendon Press’Greatbatch, D. and Dingwall, R. (1989) ‘selective facilitation: some preliminaryobservations on a strategy used by divorce mediators’, Law and SocietyReview, 23: 613.41.Holmes, J. (1995) Women, Men and Politeness, London: Longman.Holmes, J. (1997) .Women, language and identity., Journal of Sociolinguistics,2(1): 195.224.Jefferson, G. (1980) .On .trouble-premonitory. response to inquiry., SociologicalInquiry, 50: 153.85.Jefferson, G. (1985) .On the interactional unpacking of a .gloss’., Language inSociety, 14: 435.66.Jefferson, G. (1988) .On the sequential organization of troubles-talk in ordinaryconversation., Social Problems, 35: 418.41.Lakoff, R. (1975) Language and Woman’s Place, New York: Harper and Row.Levi, J. N. (1994) Language and Law: a bibliographic guide to social sciencesresearch in the USA, Chicago: American Bar Association.Matoesian, G. (1993) Reproducing Rape: domination through talk in thecourtroom, Chicago: University of Chicago Press’Matoesian, G. (1995) .Language, law and society: policy implications of theBook reviews 223Kennedy Smith rape trial., Law and Society Review, 29: 669.710.Mertz, E. (1996) .Recontextualization as socialization: Text and pragmatics inthe law school classroom. in M. Silverstein and G. Urban (eds) NaturalHistories of Discourse, Chicago: University of Chicago Press’Mertz, E. (nd) .Linguistic constructions of differences and history in the USlaw school classroom., American Bar Foundation Working Paper No. 9419.O.Barr, W. (1982) Linguistic Evidence: language, power and strategy in thecourtroom, New York: Academic Press’O.Barr, W. and Atkins, B. (1980) ..Women’s language. or .powerlesslanguage.?. in S’ Mc-Connell-Ginet, R. Borker and N. Furman (eds) Womenin Language and Society, New York: Praeger, 93.110.Pomerantz, A. (1978) .Attributions of responsibility: blamings’ Sociology, 12:115.21.Schiffrin, D. (1996) .Narrative as self-portrait: sociolinguistic portraits ofidentity., Language in Society, 25(2): 167.214.Sheldon, A. and Johnson, D. (1994) .Preschool negotiators: linguistic differencesin how girls and boys regulate the expressions of dissent in same-*** groups’,Research on Negotiations in Organizations, 4: 37.67.Tannen, D. (1993) Gender and Conversational Interaction, New York: OxfordUniversity Press’
Diana EadesDepartment of English as a Second LanguageUniversity of Hawaii
HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES
DISPUTING: NATURAL HISTORY, CROSS-CULTURAL ANDHISTORICAL PERSPECTIVESIn the remaining three substantive chapters of the book, C&O.B address three further areas in which language and law scholarship has been focused, again highlighting the role for microlinguistic analysis in understanding how the macrodiscourse of the legal system operates’Chapter 5, .A Natural history of disputing., examines several studies which have analysed different types of dispute, and provides another example of how this book .challenge[s] existing ways of thinking about legal processes by paying closer attention to their linguistic details’ (p. 97). Taking the logical model of disputes developed by Felstiner, Abel and Sarat (1980), C&O.B add Pomerantz’s (1978) and Jefferson’s (1980, 1985, 1988) conversational analysis approach, as well as some of their own linguistic and ethnographic research, to develop a new model of disputes, which they term .a natural history of disputing..In Chapter 6, .The discourses of law in a cross-cultural perspective., C&O.B .take on. legal anthropology, arguing that the ethnography which is at the basis of legal anthropology is often not linguistically rich enough to support the claims made. They illustrate this concern by drawing primarily on the work of Goldman (1986, 1993) with the Huli in Papua New Guinea. In particular they highlight Goldman’s analysis of the traditional legal process which ensued over the death of a woman, particularly villagers’ arguments over whether or not the death had been accidental. Goldman’s detailed linguistic analysis enables him to contradict the widely held anthropological view that non-Western societies do not have notions of accident. .Goldman’s linguistic analysis suggests an alternative presumption: that all cultures have notions of accident but use different linguistic strategies to express them. (p. 113).Chapter 7, .The Discourses of Law in Historical Perspective., uses two examples to show how linguistic analysis of archival historical material enables the examination of .how legal power was exercized and reproduced in other times’ (p. 116). These two examples are Davis’ (1987) study of the requests for pardons submitted to the King of France in the sixteenth century for convicted felons, and Evans Grubbs’ (1995) analysis of legislation pertaining to marriage and the family in early fourthcentury Rome. C&O.B summarize these studies showing how .historians working with tests from past societies make the same point that [they] have made throughout the book: that society’s big picture . its macrodiscourse . is best understood by examining the little details of a society’s linguistic practice . its microdiscourse. (p. 128).
CONCLUSIONThe final chapter recapitulates the main theme of the book, and briefly discusses Sheldon and Johnson’s (1994) study of children’s acquisition of disputing discourse as well as Mertz’s (1996, nd) study of the .fundamentally linguistic process’ of legal education. JW concludes in a very practical way, showing how .microlinguistic analysis is an extraordinary tool for studying social problems’ (p. 138). The authors briefly describe an interdisciplinary discourse-based ethnographic study of the state of the adversary system which they and other social scientists have been invited to carry out by members of the Colorado Bar: .we and the other researchers share the general perception that the adversary system is out of control and hope that our work can conBook tribute to its diagnosis and treatment. More broadly, we hope that other people responsible for law reform will also come to appreciate that intelligent and effective efforts to improve legal practice require a great deal of sensitivity to the language that constitutes the practice.. (p. 138)
SUMMARY EVALUATIONJW is a very nicely produced, inexpensive book, and its clear organization and pithy writing style, combined with the absence of typographical errors, make this book very readable. Each chapter presents summaries of important research, which are bound to entice many readers to read the original works’ Following critical analysis of the work they summarize, C&O.B provide thought-provoking chapter conclusions, to which this review can not do justice.Although the authors say (p. 6) that JW is not intended as a textbook, they do hope that it can ‘serve as the core of a law and language class’, which in my usage would mean that it is a set textbook, but not the only one. While it does not cover the whole field of law and language/language and law, and is unlikely to deal with all the topics a teacher would want to include, it gives cohesion and direction to the field, and cogently demonstrates how .the law and language field [is] sending a coherent message about law, language and power. (p. 5).In addition, Chapters 2.5, which make up nearly half the book, will be of considerable interest beyond the field of language and the law, to students and scholars of language and gender.Not everyone will be entirely satisfied with Just Words’ Being short, it does not cover all possibly relevant topics, and being eclectic as well, it does not try to deal with all research in the topics it does cover. And some readers will undoubtedly want more bibliographic references to substantiate some of the claims made. To my mind the disadvantage caused by an arguable lack of comprehensive treatment of some of their topics is generally outweighed by the advantage of the clear, crisp and uncluttered presentation of the central argument of the book: that .the details of legal discourse matter. (p. 129).Students and scholars of language and law/forensic linguistics, sociolinguistics, legal studies, sociology, anthropology and gender studies will enjoy this book. More specifically, those of us in the area defined by C&O.B as law and language have in this inspiring book the articulation of an important unifying theme and a clear conceptual framework in which to situate future research.
REFERENCESAries, E. (1996) Men and Women in Interaction, Oxford: Oxford UniversityPress’Coates, J.(1989) .Gossip revisited: language in all-female groups’, in J. Coatesand D. Cameron (eds) Women in their Speech Communities, London:Longman, 94.122.Coates, J. (1997) Women Talk, Oxford: Blackwell.Conley, J. M. and O.Barr, W. M. (1990) Rules versus Relationships, Chicago:University of Chicago Press’Conley, J. M., O.Barr, W. M. and Lind, E. A. (1978) .The power of language:Presentational style in the courtroom., Duke Law Journal, 78: 1375.99.Davis, N. (1987) Fiction in the Archives: pardon tales and their tellers insixteenth-century France, Palo Alto, Calif: Stanford University Press’Evans Grubbs, J. (1995) Law and Family in Late Antiquity: The EmperorConstantine’s marriage legislation, New York: Oxford University Press’Felstiner W., Abel, R. and Sarat, A. (1980.1) .The emergence and transformationof disputes: naming, blaming, claiming...., Law and Society Review,15: 631.54.Garcia, A. (1995) .The problematics of representation in community mediationhearings: implications for mediation practice., Journal of Sociology and SocialWelfare, 22: 23.46.Gilligan, C. (1982) In a Different Voice: psychological theory and women’sdevelopment, Cambridge: Harvard University Press’Goldman, L. (1986) .A case of .questions’ and the .questions’ of case., Text,6: 345.92.Goldman, L. (1993) The Culture of Co-incidence: accident and absolute liabilityon Huli, New York: Clarendon Press’Greatbatch, D. and Dingwall, R. (1989) ‘selective facilitation: some preliminaryobservations on a strategy used by divorce mediators’, Law and SocietyReview, 23: 613.41.Holmes, J. (1995) Women, Men and Politeness, London: Longman.Holmes, J. (1997) .Women, language and identity., Journal of Sociolinguistics,2(1): 195.224.Jefferson, G. (1980) .On .trouble-premonitory. response to inquiry., SociologicalInquiry, 50: 153.85.Jefferson, G. (1985) .On the interactional unpacking of a .gloss’., Language inSociety, 14: 435.66.Jefferson, G. (1988) .On the sequential organization of troubles-talk in ordinaryconversation., Social Problems, 35: 418.41.Lakoff, R. (1975) Language and Woman’s Place, New York: Harper and Row.Levi, J. N. (1994) Language and Law: a bibliographic guide to social sciencesresearch in the USA, Chicago: American Bar Association.Matoesian, G. (1993) Reproducing Rape: domination through talk in thecourtroom, Chicago: University of Chicago Press’Matoesian, G. (1995) .Language, law and society: policy implications of theBook reviews 223Kennedy Smith rape trial., Law and Society Review, 29: 669.710.Mertz, E. (1996) .Recontextualization as socialization: Text and pragmatics inthe law school classroom. in M. Silverstein and G. Urban (eds) NaturalHistories of Discourse, Chicago: University of Chicago Press’Mertz, E. (nd) .Linguistic constructions of differences and history in the USlaw school classroom., American Bar Foundation Working Paper No. 9419.O.Barr, W. (1982) Linguistic Evidence: language, power and strategy in thecourtroom, New York: Academic Press’O.Barr, W. and Atkins, B. (1980) ..Women’s language. or .powerlesslanguage.?. in S’ Mc-Connell-Ginet, R. Borker and N. Furman (eds) Womenin Language and Society, New York: Praeger, 93.110.Pomerantz, A. (1978) .Attributions of responsibility: blamings’ Sociology, 12:115.21.Schiffrin, D. (1996) .Narrative as self-portrait: sociolinguistic portraits ofidentity., Language in Society, 25(2): 167.214.Sheldon, A. and Johnson, D. (1994) .Preschool negotiators: linguistic differencesin how girls and boys regulate the expressions of dissent in same-*** groups’,Research on Negotiations in Organizations, 4: 37.67.Tannen, D. (1993) Gender and Conversational Interaction, New York: OxfordUniversity Press’
Diana EadesDepartment of English as a Second LanguageUniversity of Hawaii
legal english
1、 Whereas public Acts affter the public generally;private Acts only affect a limited sector of the populace,either particular people or people within a particular locality.
2、The idea of binding judicial precedent is a special feature of common law jurisdiction.The doctrine is based on the general principle that once a court has stared the legal position in a given situation,then the same decision will be reached in any future case where the material facts are the same.
3、Books by legal authors are not cited very frequently in the English courts,contraty to the practice in many continental countries.At one time this practice was seldom allowed here,and was restricted to a few notable authoriries.More recently the rule has been relaxed and the number of acceptable authors increased.
2、The idea of binding judicial precedent is a special feature of common law jurisdiction.The doctrine is based on the general principle that once a court has stared the legal position in a given situation,then the same decision will be reached in any future case where the material facts are the same.
3、Books by legal authors are not cited very frequently in the English courts,contraty to the practice in many continental countries.At one time this practice was seldom allowed here,and was restricted to a few notable authoriries.More recently the rule has been relaxed and the number of acceptable authors increased.
THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA March 4, 1789 Preamble We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. Article I Section 1. All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives. Section 2. The House of Representatives shall be composed of members chosen every second year by the people of the several states, and the electors in each state shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the state legislature. No person shall be a Representative who shall not have attained to the age of twenty five years, and been seven years a citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an inhabitant of that state in which he shall be chosen. Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several states which may be included within this union, according to their respective numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole number of free persons, including those bound to service for a term of years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons. The actual Enumeration shall be made within three years after the first meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent term of ten years, in such manner as they shall by law direct. The number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty thousand, but each state shall have at least one Representative; and until such enumeration shall be made, the state of New Hampshire shall be entitled to choose three, Massachusetts eight, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations one, Connecticut five, New York six, New Jersey four, Pennsylvania eight, Delaware one, Maryland six, Virginia ten, North Carolina five, South Carolina five, and Georgia three. When vacancies happen in the Representation from any state, the executive authority thereof shall issue writs of election to fill such vacancies. The House of Representatives shall choose their speaker and other officers; and shall have the sole power of impeachment. Section 3. The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each state, chosen by the legislature thereof, for six years; and each Senator shall have one vote.Immediately after they shall be assembled in consequence of the first election, they shall be divided as equally as may be into three classes. The seats of the Senators of the first class shall be vacated at the expiration of the second year, of the second class at the expiration of the fourth year, and the third class at the expiration of the sixth year, so that one third may be chosen every second year; and if vacancies happen by resignation, or otherwise, during the recess of the legislature of any state, the executive thereof may make temporary appointments until the next meeting of the legislature, which shall then fill such vacancies. No person shall be a Senator who shall not have attained to the age of thirty years, and been nine years a citizen of the United States and who shall not, when elected, be an inhabitant of that state for which he shall be chosen. The Vice President of the United States shall be President of the Senate, but shall have no vote, unless they be equally divided. The Senate shall choose their other officers, and also a President pro tempore, in the absence of the Vice President, or when he shall exercise the office of President of the United States. The Senate shall have the sole power to try all impeachments. When sitting for that purpose, they shall be on oath or affirmation. When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside: And no person shall be convicted without the concurrence of two thirds of the members present. Judgment in cases of impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any office of honor, trust or profit under the United States: but the party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to indictment, trial, judgment and punishment, according to law. Section 4. The times, places and manner of holding elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each state by the legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by law make or alter such regulations, except as to the places of choosing Senators. The Congress shall assemble at least once in every year, and such meeting shall be on the first Monday in December, unless they shall by law appoint a different day.Section 5. Each House shall be the judge of the elections, returns and qualifications of its own members, and a majority of each shall constitute a quorum to do business; but a smaller number may adjourn from day to day, and may be authorized to compel the attendance of absent members, in such manner, and under such penalties as each House may provide. Each House may determine the rules of its proceedings, punish its members for disorderly behavior, and, with the concurrence of two thirds, expel a member. Each House shall keep a journal of its proceedings, and from time to time publish the same, excepting such parts as may in their judgment require secrecy; and the yeas and nays of the members of either House on any question shall, at the desire of one fifth of those present, be entered on the journal. Neither House, during the session of Congress, shall, without the consent of the other, adjourn for more than three days, nor to any other place than that in which the two Houses shall be sitting. Section 6. The Senators and Representatives shall receive a compensation for their services, to be ascertained by law, and paid out of the treasury of the United States. They shall in all cases, except treason, felony and breach of the peace, be privileged from arrest during their attendance at the session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same; and for any speech or debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other place. No Senator or Representative shall, during the time for which he was elected, be appointed to any civil office under the authority of the United States, which shall have been created, or the emoluments whereof shall have been increased during such time; and no person holding any office under the United States, shall be a member of either House d
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