Language and Law

3 Credits · Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

This course explores the intersection between linguistics and law, focusing primarily on the application of linguistic knowledge and methods to the legal process. We will examine language as it is used in a variety of legal settings, including police-civilian encounters (e.g., traffic stops, “consensual” searches, interrogations, confessions); the courtroom (e.g., opening statements; witness examination); in the course of appellate litigation and judicial decision-making (e.g., oral arguments, judicial opinion writing, legal interpretation); and the law classroom. We will also cover the role of linguistics as evidence (e.g., speaker profiling, authorship analysis) and linguists in forensic settings. This course is interdisciplinary in nature and weaves together concepts and methods from not only linguistics, but also anthropology, ethnography of communication, sociology, social psychology, and law, with readings and course materials reflecting a diverse blend of perspectives. That said, emphasis will be placed on discourse analysis methods and their application in legal contexts.