Theorising language in sociolinguistics and the law: (How) can sociolinguistics have an impact on inequality in the criminal justice process?

Abstract

A common complaint about the legal system is that lawyers can manipulate people with complex language, such as "big words" and "tricky questions". But sociolinguistic research, beginning in the early 1980s and examining a number of legal contexts, demonstrates many more ways in which language is implicated in the widespread popular dissatisfaction with the law, For example, research in criminal courts shows how defendants and witnesses are controlled, coerced, and manipulated through the rigid and asymmetrical discourse structure of courtroom hearings, which restricts the interactional rights of witnesses to providing answers to specific questions (see Eades 2010 for references). More recently, considerable sociolinguistic attention has turned to how competing stories can, or must, be told, retold, and evaluated throughout the criminal justice process. This chapter examines a theoretical dissonance between how sociolinguistics and the law see language, which is highlighted in this research.