Language in the Negotiation of Justice Contexts, Issues and Applications

This book explores the ways language is used by the professional legal community for the communication of its main business - the negotiation of justice - in today’s globalized world. The volume addresses three main aspects of language use in the negotiation of justice. Beginning with the legal contexts of litigation, arbitration and mediation, the book moves on to discuss the main issues identified in those contexts and finally it explores the applications of legal linguistics. These three aspects are studied across the themes of analyses of legal discourse and genres, issues of power and ideology in the use of legal language, cross-cultural legal communication, questions of recontextualization, accessibility and plain language, law and disciplinary identity, and pedagogy of legal language. With chapters set across a variety of jurisdictions, the contributions offer analytical insights into the interface between law and language. The book is a valuable resource for those in the legal community wishing to increase their understanding of the use of language for the negotiation of justice.

Christopher Williams is full Professor of English Language and Linguistics in the Department of Law at Foggia University in southern Italy. He has published extensively in the field of legal English. Besides his monographic work Tradition and Change in Legal English: Verbal Constructions in Prescriptive Texts (2005), he has co-edited with Maurizio Gotti the volume Legal Discourse across Languages and Cultures (2010). He has also co-edited with Ilse Depraetere a volume on future time reference which appeared in a special issue of English Language and Linguistics in 2010. He is chief editor of the journal ESP Across Cultures. Girolamo Tessuto is Associate Professor of English Language and Linguistics in the Department of Law, Second University of Naples. His main research interests are in genre analysis of academic and professional discourses in legal contexts. In addition to several publications appearing as research papers, book chapters and co-edited work, he has recently published a research monograph Investigating English Legal Genres in Academic and Professional Contexts (2012). He is Editorial Board member of international linguistic journals and chief editor of the Explorations in Language and Law publication series.