Dr. Susana M. Sotillo, DI 119                                                                           (Linguistics 290-01) 

Language of the Law  
FALL 2001

Time and Location:  Wednesday 5:00 pm -- 6:15  pm, Dickson Hall 280 (Lab)
Wednesday
  6:15 to 7:30 p.m., Dickson Hall 270
Office Hours


Course Description:  This course explores the interface between language and our legal system.  Topics to be covered include the following:

Prerequisites:  An excellent command of the English language.

Teaching Methodology:  Introductory Power Point presentations, discussions, Web-based research, corpus linguistics workshops, and student-led presentations and discussions.   TACT tutoring sessions will be available in DI182.  GA Masayo Oda will supervise the TACT tutoring sessions.

Methods of Evaluation:  Attendance, active classroom participation, and completion of TACT assignments, 25%; student oral presentations, written summaries and analyses of readings; 25%; corpus linguistic analysis of courtroom discourse (semester project/field work), 30%; exams, 20%.  NOTE:  If you are absent on the scheduled date of your presentation, it is your responsibility to switch with another student.  Failure to do so will result in a loss of 50 points.
Fieldwork:  Students are encouraged to report on some active off-campus research, such as observing courtroom language and/or courtroom interpreting, interviewing a lawyer or a judge about linguistic issues in the law, or some other rigorous investigative project (non-library research). (Suggestions for fieldwork were kindly provided by Dr. Judith N. Levi.)  If you do interview a lawyer with expertise in a specific area, such as a lawyer that advises the planning and zoning board in New Jersey towns and townships, ask permission to audiotape the conversation. 

Required Texts: 
Just Words (Law, Language, and Power).  John M. Conley and William M. O'Barr.  Chicago, IL:  The University of
Chicago Press, 1998.
Course Packet of Readings on Reserve (see below).

Readings:

Week 1:  History of Legal Language (9/5/01)
The Discourses of Law in Historical Perspective and A Natural History of Disputing, chapters five and seven, Just Words (Law, Language, and Power).
Introduction to TACT.   Download the program from the University of Toronto.

Week 2:  Corpus Linguistic Analysis of Courtroom Discourse to Uncover Discriminatory Linguistic Practices (9/12/01)
Domestic discourse, rocky relationships: semantic prosodies in representations of marital violence in the O.J. Simpson trial (Janet Cotterill, Discourse & Society 12(3) 2001, pp. 291-312).
Using TACT to analyze court transcripts.  Visit the University of Birmingham's Forensic Linguistics Page.

Week 3:  Corpus Linguistics Analysis (continuation -- 9/19/01)
Tools for the trade (D. Woolls and M. Coulthard Forensic Linguistics 5(1) 1998, pp. 33-57).
Doing Web-based and library research in Forensic Linguistics (5:15 to 6:15 p.m.):  William Vincenti, Reference Librarian, 655-7147. 


Week 4:  The Language Scientist as Expert in the Legal Setting (9/26/01)
Forensic semantics: the meaning of murder, manslaughter and homicide (I. Langford, Forensic Linguistics 7(1) 2000, pp. 72-94).
Does the Legal System Need Experts in English Syntax? (Lawrence Solan, 1990).

Week 5:  Political Discourse, Ideology, and the Law  (10/3/01)
Political Discourse and Ideology (Teun A. van Dijk, Second Draft, April 2001, Jornadas del Discurso Politico, UPF, Barcelona).
The Official Version: Audience manipulation in police records of interviews with suspects.  (M. Coulthard, 1997. 
In C.R. Caldas-Coulthard & M. Coulthard (Eds.), Texts and Practices (pp. 15-31).  London: Routledge.

Week 6:  Spoken Language in the Courtroom (10/10/01)
Misconceptions about Language in Law Cases (Chapter 1, Roger W. Shuy, 1993).
US pattern jury instructions: problems and proposals (B. K. Dumas,  Forensic Linguistics 7(1), 2000, pp.49-71).

Week 7:  The Language of Mediation (10/17/01)
Chapter three, Just Words (Law, Language, and Power).
Interpreting for the police: issues in pre-trial phases of the judicial process (S. Berk-Seligson, Forensic Linguistics 7 (2) 2000, pp. 212-237).

UNIVERSITY DAY  (10/24/01 -- No Classes)
Week 8:  (10/31/01 Halloween)    
Work on your EXAM #1 (Parts I, II, and III).  Hand it in by 6:00 p.m.

Week 9:  Interpreting and the Law (11/7/01)  Go to a case study in forensic linguistics.  Part lecture -- Small Group Discussions.
The impact  of court interpreting on the coerciveness of leading questions (S. Berk-Seligson, Forensic Linguistics 6(1) 1999, pp. 30-56).
Questioning in interpreted testimony (A. C. Rigney, Forensic Linguistics 6 (1) 1999, pp. 83-108).

Week 10:  (11/14/01) EXAM #2  (1 hour 15 minutes -- Answer only two questions out of five)
We will discuss your Final Project which is due December 12, 2001.

Week 11:  The Rights of Linguistic Minorities (11/21/01)
The Difficulties of Limited-English Proficient Individuals in the Legal Setting (J.D. Roy, Vol.606, 1990, pp. 73-83).
Redressing the imbalance: Aboriginal people in the criminal justice system (D. Mildren, Forensic Linguistics 6(1) 1999, pp. 137-160).
TENTATIVE:  A very successful immigration lawyer will be our guest speaker from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m.  Be prepared to ask questions.

Week 12:  Conversational Analysis as Evidence in Criminal Cases (11/28/01)
Evidence of Cooperation in Conversation (R. W. Shuy, The Language Scientist as Expert in the Legal Setting, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, Vol. 606, 1990, pp. 85-105).
Asking Questions (R.W. Shuy, Language Crimes, 1993, Blackwell, pp. 174-199).

Week 13:  The Psychological Impact of Language Use in Modern Day Litigation (12/5/01)
Psycholinguistics in the Courtroom (M. S. Miron, Annals of the NY Academy of Sciences, Vol.606, 1990, pp. 55-64).
Threatening (R. W. Shuy, Language Crimes, 1993, Blackwell, pp. 97-117).

Week 14:  Week of Finals: Final Project (12/12/01)  Maximum length:  10 double-spaced pages.  Your final project will consist of original research using Sprague's Electronic Databases (Lexis-Nexis).