Language, communication and legal process

Legal process depends on language, oral and written. This unit focuses on the role and the effectiveness of language in the legal process.

Topics studied include:

• the history and complexity of legal language;
• language in statutes, contracts and other instruments and its interpretation;

the plain language movement;

• the importance of language in investigation and preparation (police cautions and interviews, lawyer interviews, preparation of witness statements and affidavits);
• language in courtroom and other proceedings (examination of witnesses;
• communication with juries, oral and written submissions);
• language in mediation;
• communication with people without English or with low competency in English (interpreters, unrepresented litigants, cross-cultural communication, Aboriginal people, children); and
• linguists as experts (authorship identification, voice recognition, phonetics, language identity, suicide notes and ransom notes etc, trade marks).