Language plays an essential role both in creating law and in governing its implementation. Providing an accessible and comprehensive introduction to this subject, Language and Law: describes the different registers and genres that make up spoken and written legal language and how they develop over time; analyses real-life examples drawn from court cases from different parts of the world, illustrating the varieties of English used in the courtroom by speakers occupying different roles; addresses the challenges presented to our notions of law and regulation by online communication; discusses the complex role of translation in bilingual and multilingual jurisdictions, including Hong Kong and Canada; and provides readings from key scholars in the discipline, including Lawrence Solan, Peter Goodrich, Marianne Constable, David Mellinkoff, and Chris Heffer. With a wide range of activities throughout, this accessible textbook is essential reading for anyone studying language and law or forensic linguistics. Sections A, B, and C of this book are freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9781315436258

This book provides a state-of-the-art account of past and current research in the interface between linguistics and law. It outlines the range of legal areas in which linguistics plays an increasing role and describes the tools and approaches used by linguists and lawyers in this vibrant new field. Through a combination of overview chapters, case studies, and theoretical descriptions, the volume addresses areas such as the history and structure of legal languages, its meaning and interpretation, multilingualism and language rights, courtroom discourse, forensic identification, intellectual property and linguistics, and legal translation and interpretation. Encyclopedic in scope, the handbook includes chapters written by experts from every continent who are familiar with linguistic issues that arise in diverse legal systems, including both civil and common law jurisdictions, mixed systems like that of China, and the emerging law of the European Union.

This history of legal language slices through the polysyllabic thicket of legalese. The text shows to what extent legalese is simply a product of its past and demonstrates that arcane vocabulary is not an inevitable feature of our legal system.

Among the most prominent scholars of language and law is Peter Tiersma, a law professor at Loyola Law School with a doctorate in linguistics (co-editor of The Oxford Handbook of Language and Law). Tiersma's significant body of work traverses a variety of legal and linguistic fields. This book offers a selection of twelve of Tiersma's most influential publications, divided into five thematic areas that are critical to both law and linguistics: Language and Law as a Field of Inquiry, Legal Language and its History, Language and Civil Liability, Language and Criminal Justice, and Jury Instructions. Each paper is accompanied by a brief commentary from a leading scholar in the field, offering a substantive conversation about the ramifications of Tiersma's work and the disagreements that have often surrounded it.

The world of law has changed in the last decades: it has become more globalized, multilingual and digital. The sections and contributions of this volume continue the interdisciplinary discussion about the challenges of this change for theory and practice of law and for the International Language and Law Association (ILLA) relaunched in 2017. First, the book gives a broad overview to the research field of legal linguistics, its history, research directions and open questions in different parts of the world (United States, Africa, Italy, Spain, Germany, Nordic countries and Russia). The second section consists of contributions about the relation of language, law and justice in a globalized world with a focus on multilingual and supranational law in the EU. The third section focuses on digitalization and mediatization of the law, the last section reports about the discussion at the ILLA relaunch conference in 2017.

Completed in 1964, Harold J. Berman's long-lost tract shows how properly negotiated, translated and formalised legal language is essential to fostering peace and understanding within local and international communities. Exemplifying interdisciplinary and comparative legal scholarship long before they were fashionable, it is a fascinating prequel to Berman's monumental Law and Revolution series. It also anticipates many of the main themes of the modern movements of law, language and ethics. In his Introduction, John Witte, Jr, a student and colleague of Berman, contextualises the text within the development of Berman's legal thought and in the evolution of interdisciplinary legal studies. He has also pieced together some of the missing sections from Berman's other early writings and provided notes and critical apparatus throughout. An Afterword by Tibor Várady, another student and colleague of Berman, illustrates via modern cases the wisdom and utility of Berman's theories of law, language and community.

Berman's long-lost tract shows how properly negotiated, translated and formalised legal language is essential to fostering peace and common understanding.

Current Legal Issues, like its sister volume Current Legal Problems (now available in journal format), is based upon an annual colloquium held at University College London. Each year leading scholars from around the world gather to discuss the relationship between law and another discipline of thought. Each colloquium examines how the external discipline is conceived in legal thought and argument, how the law is pictured in that discipline, and analyses points of controversy in the use, and abuse, of extra-legal arguments within legal theory and practice. Law and Language, the fifteenth volume in the Current Legal Issues series, offers an insight into the scholarship examining the relationship between language and the law. The issues examined in this book range from problems of interpretation and beyond this to the difficulties of legal translation, and further to non-verbal expression in a chapter tracing the use of sign language at the Old Bailey; it examines the role of language and the law in a variety of literary works, including Hamlet; and considers the interrelation between language and the law in a variety of contexts, including criminal law, contract law, family law, human rights law, and EU law.

This book is a survey of how law, language and translation overlap with concepts, crimes and conflicts. It is a transdisciplinary survey exploring the dynamics of colonialism and the globalization of crime. Concepts and conflicts are used here to mean ‘conflicting interpretations’ engendering real conflicts. Beginning with theoretical issues and hermeneutics in chapter 2, the study moves on to definitions and applications in chapter 3, introducing cattle stealing as a comparative theme and global case study in chapter 4. Cattle stealing is also known in English as ‘rustling, duffing, raiding, stock theft, lifting and predatorial larceny.’ Crime and punishment are differently perceived depending on cultures and legal systems: ‘Captain Starlight’ was a legendary ‘duffer’; in India ‘lifting’ a sacred cow is a sacrilegious act. Following the globalization of crime, chapter 5 deals with human rights, ethnic cleansing and genocide. International treaties in translation set the scene for two world wars. Introducing ‘unequal treaties’ (e.g. Hong Kong), chapter 6 highlights disasters caused by treaties in translation. Cases feature American Indians (the ‘trail of broken treaties’), Maoris (Treaty of Waitangi) and East Africa (Treaty of Wuchale).

The ‘law-language-law’ theme is deeply engraved in Occidental culture, more so than contemporary studies on the subject currently illustrate. This insightful book creates awareness of these cultural roots and shows how language and themes in law can be richer than studying a simple mutuality of motives. Rethinking Law and Language unveils today’s problems with the two faces of language: the analogue and the digital, on the basis of which our smart phones and Artificial Intelligence create modern life.