Sociolinguistics and the Legal Process

by Eades, Diana

• ISBN13: 9781847692535
• ISBN10: 1847692532
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2010-04-06
• Publisher: Multilingual Matters

Summary

Sociolinguistics and the Legal Process is an introduction to language, law and society for advanced undergraduate and postgraduate students. Drawing on a wide range of topics, it explores what sociolinguistic research can tell us about how language works and doesn’t work in the legal process.

Author Biography

Diana Eades (University of New England, Australia) has been actively involved in the legal process for more than twenty years, doing sociolinguistic research, providing expert evidence and delivering training for judges, magistrates and lawyers. She has taught at undergraduate and graduate levels at the University of Hawaiâ??i and several colleges and universities in Australia. At various times she has been President, Vice-President and Secretary of the International Association of Forensic Linguists. In addition to many journal articles and book chapters, her publications include Courtroom Talk and Neocolonial Control (2008, Mouton de Gruyter) and the 1995 edited volume Language in Evidence: Issues Confronting Aboriginal and Multicultural Australia (UNSW Press). She is co-editor of The International Journal of Speech Language and the Law.

Table of Contents

PART 1 INTRODUCTION

Chapter 1 Using sociolinguistics to study the legal process

PART II COURTROOM HEARINGS

Chapter 2 Researching courtroom talk

Chapter 3 Focus on trials

Chapter 4 Second language speakers and interpreters

Chapter 5 Vulnerable witnesses

Chapter 6 Courtroom talk and societal power relations

PART III POLICE INTERVIEWS

Chapter 7 Police interviews

Chapter 8 Police interviews with members of minority groups

PART IV OTHER LEGAL CONTEXTS

Chapter 9 Lawyer-client interactions

Chapter 10 Informal and alternative legal processes

PART V CONCLUSION

Chapter 11 What (else) can sociolinguistics do?