Using English in the legal process

Abstract

'I wonder if I might uplift from Your Honour the documentation?' might seem a rather strange way for a lawyer to ask a judge if he can take back a piece of paper. Legal English is an occupational register, which includes specialised vocabulary and many formal sentence constructions. It is well known that legal documents, such as wills and contracts, are characterised by this specialised register ,known in ordinary English as 'legalese'. To a lesser extent, specialised vocabulary and formal sentence constructions are also found in spoken legal contexts, such as the opening example above from a courtroom hearing. So, you might speak English, but can you understand what goes on in court? Actually, it it is likely that many people will understand most, if not all, of the talk that is addressed directly to them (and note that, in the opening example, a lawyer is talking to a judge, not to a witness). In spoken legal contexts the legal vocabulary and sentence structures typically occur in talk between lawyers and judges: it is a kind of 'insiders' language', similar to the way in which computer technicians might discuss your computer problems, in their specialised register, in front of you. But there is more to specialised legal language than vocabulary and grammar. This chanter will focus on features of pragmatics - how language is used in social contexts - which are specific to legal contexts, in particular to the criminal justice process in common law systems (used in countries such as the UK, Australia and the USA).