This chapter focuses on the production of official records of police–suspect interviews in England & Wales, and the flaws in their current use as criminal evidence. It reveals the importance of the administrative processes undergone by an interviewee’s words post-interview, revealing how they shape – indeed, create – the resulting evidential product, especially through the institutional practice of summarising parts of the interaction. The journey from ‘live’ interaction in an interview room to an official evidential record is largely taken for granted within the legal system, with little-to-no internal or external scrutiny; this chapter argues that it should instead be recognised as a substantial contribution to – and transformation of – the resulting evidence, with all the dangers that potentially entails. Using data from the ‘For The Record’ project, including interview recordings and official police records alongside focus groups with practitioners, it demonstrates the importance for practitioners and researchers alike to pay closer attention to the format of the data they are examining, and to actively reflect on and seek out the many voices and actors which have shaped it.

Interpreting for defendants who are not conversant with the language of the court is a standard service in jurisdictions that have ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. This ensures defendants’ linguistic presence and meaningful participation in the judicial process, thereby protecting their right to a fair trial. Yet, interpreting for jurors is rare, despite their crucial role in determining defendants’ guilt or innocence in criminal jury trials. This qualitative study compares two Hong Kong appellate courts’ divergent decisions and arguments presented in the appeal case which contested jurors’ access to the chuchotage interpretation, which is usually audible only to the defendant. The chapter reflects on the practice of court interpreting in the bilingual legal system of Hong Kong and argues for extending interpreting services to jurors to better safeguard defendants’ right to a fair trial. Given that English is a dominant language in jury trials and the majority of the population is Cantonese-speaking, the discussion links interpreting for jurors to upholding the fundamental principle of trial by peers drawn from a cross-section of the community.

By opening the ‘black box’ of what is said and done in the trial hearings of the International Criminal Court (ICC), the chapter shows that the syllogistic reasoning found in the ICC’s case law and judicial decisions is not a straightforward application of ‘rules’ to ‘facts’, but a contingent discursive achievement that reflects a particular socio-political environment. The discussion of court transcripts from the cases of a Ugandan rebel commander and a Malian jihadist combines a long tradition of sociolinguistic and linguistic-anthropological work on text trajectories and the ‘instability’ of travelling texts with Koskenniemi’s anti-foundationalist re-specification of legal discourse as a ‘language game’. The chapter shows that, first, the recontextualisation of the everyday lives of perpetrators and victims of international crimes with the abstract legal framework of the Rome Statute relies heavily on commonsense understandings of the relevant legal concepts, and, second, that such judicial ‘fact-finding’ and its attendant discursive transformations in turn inscribe international criminal proceedings in a range of broader (geo)political contexts.

This chapter explores the communicative processes involved in producing witness statements in immigration visa applications and appeals settings, focusing attention on the co-constructed nature of the statement. Drawing on a single-case study from two connected advice sessions with a lawyer, refugee client and interpreter, the chapter illustrates how participants work together to prepare a witness statement to counter the immigration authorities’ assertion that the client’s family relationships have been falsified. Analysis focusing on the rhetorical strategies employed in the writing of the statement reveals the fallacy of viewing it as a single-authored text for which the client bears sole responsibility. Rather, the chapter shows how each participant’s authorial voice shapes the co-construction of the witness statement, uncovering how the specialist knowledge and expertise (legal, linguistic, and contextual) of each co-author is necessary to building a successful evidential argument. It also illustrates how the discursive mediation work taking place during the interpreted lawyer–client interaction enhances the credibility and persuasiveness of the client’s statement.

Research findings in linguistics have contributed to the development of the field of second language acquisition since its inception. However, it is only relatively recently that an interactional linguistics approach, conceptualizing language as a co-constructed semiotic resource and emergent phenomenon, has been utilized for research in the field. Our chapter introduces a rigorous method for the analysis of dialogic interaction (often spoken language data), called Conversation Analysis (CA), originally developed in the field of sociology. We discuss CA’s origins, core principles, and natural fit as a method for linguistic analysis. The chapter then surveys research that has used CA methods for understanding SLA including how CA methods played a role in reconceptualizing what it means to be competent in a language. Lastly, we present a short summary of one research study using CA methods, and two activities grounded in CA principles that language teachers might consider adding to their repertoire.

In this chapter, we outline the unique advantages of systemic functional linguistics (SFL) to describe spoken and written discourse in texts and provide a strong foundation for English language learners to produce their own stretches of spoken and written discourse. We also provide practical applications of SFL theory through example activities based on a genre-based approach to language teaching using a teaching-learning cycle, which builds on Vygotsky’s concept of the Zone of Proximal Development and Bruner’s notion of scaffolding. SFL is a comprehensive and at the same time fully appliable linguistics. Learning a second language involves making meanings about the world, making meanings to interact with others in the world, and creating cohesive and coherent texts, all at the same time. Making choices from the language system is fundamental. By combining a social semiotic view of language with socially oriented theories of language learning involving semiotic mediation through scaffolding, second language teachers can be explicit about the linguistic properties of texts in context and offer the right kinds of support and guidance through cycles of language learning and teaching.

This chapter examines the discourse around Faretta waivers in capital cases. Under the US law, criminal defendants, even in capital cases, may decline assistance of counsel and represent themselves at trial as long as their choice is made intelligently and knowingly with ‘eyes open’, similar to the legal standard applied in Miranda decisions. Despite their significant impact on trial fairness, the language of Faretta warnings has not received sufficient attention. By analyzing written Faretta warnings and hearings discussing defendants’ decisions in a sample of California capital cases, this chapter shows that, as in Miranda, linguistic complexity and ritualistic approach to checking comprehension may inhibit defendants’ understanding of their legal options. In both waiver contexts, complex closed questions lead to insufficient assurance of laypersons’ true comprehension of legal waivers, obstructing defendants’ access to justice and reducing the reliability of the proceedings. This initial study recommends further interdisciplinary research on the discourse and practices of Faretta warnings to guide improvements and enhance truly informed choices.

In this chapter we argue that formal linguistic analysis is an important part of the language teacher’s formation and, given the right approach, can provide a unifying view of cross-linguistic patterns. We describe an undergraduate course taught at a college in New York City which sought to compare phonological, morphological, and syntactic patterns in a wide variety of languages. Seeing both differences and similarities across these often typologically diverse languages through an analytic lens also helps students overcome biases and preconceived ideas about the status of a language while at the same time leading prospective language teachers to a better understanding of minoritized languages spoken in their own homes.

Two different languages may make use of the same grammatical categories, such as number or tense, but one language may make distinctions within that category that the other does not, or express those distinctions with more complex coding than the other. It is even possible that a grammatical category expressed in one language is entirely absent from the other. Second language learning thus requires a comparative approach. The learner must understand the rules and structures in both L1 and L2 order to identify how the languages differ from each other. This requires a “metalanguage” for thinking and speaking about language structure. An understanding of basic morphosyntactic concepts provides just such a metalanguage. Using comparative case studies with data from English, Spanish, German, and Norwegian, this chapter demonstrates the usefulness for second language learning of morphosyntactic concepts such as tense, modality, aspect, finite, infinitive, participle, imperfective, past prospective, gerund, nominalization, definite, indefinite, reflexive, modifier, argument, constituent, complement, dependent clause, relative clause, conjunction, and subordinator.

Corpus linguistics involves compiling and examining authentic samples of everyday communication. Chapter 11, written by Phoebe Lin, explores its significance for L2 teaching and learning. It provides an overview of its goals and methods, and presents recent advances in corpus linguistics for the L2 classroom. This chapter demonstrates new and user-friendly online corpus tools for various L2 teaching and learning contexts, including vocabulary analysis, error correction, and writing idea suggestions. It also summarises findings about data-driven learning (DDL), a specialisation in corpus linguistics that explores best practices when incorporating corpus use inside and outside the classroom. A number of essential and practical questions are addressed, including the class time required for teaching concordancing, the types of learners who will particularly benefit from concordancing training, how to select concordancers based on learner needs, factors to consider when planning lessons involving concordancing, and so on. The chapter concludes by discussing the role of teachers in implementing corpus and concordancing training in the classroom.

This introductory chapter provides the rationale for this topic and framing of the book. The strength and tools of linguistics can contribute greatly to teacher effectiveness in the second language classroom, yet the two professional realms have developed largely independently of one another. This chapter introduces the argument for strengthening the role of linguistics in second language study as well as establishing the place of second language data in linguistics inquiry and education, bringing together the two disciplines around the actual realities of language itself. It introduces the chapter content and flow of the book, the breadth represented in topics and authors, intended audience, special features of the chapters, and perspectives from second language acquisition to help bridge the gap between disciplines.

This introductory chapter details the purpose of the collection and its structure. This collection presents the state-of-the-art research in applied linguistics directly relevant to procedural and administrative law and practice, with an emphasis on how legal procedure is constructed, negotiated and implemented through language. Covering the themes around legal process and legal profession through the lens of linguistics, the focus of this collection is very firmly on the applicability of linguistic theory and methodology to the context of legal practice. The Introduction also outlines the chapters, which draw on distinct methods and data types to explore diverse aspects of professional practice across a number of jurisdictions. In doing so, the chapter highlights the immense potential for incorporating linguistic insights into the legal process and the benefits it can bring to law researchers and practitioners.

This chapter analyses how the Shrewsburys’ servants’ letters represent the micropolitics of their employers’ combined or dispersed households throughout the turbulent 1580s, revealing that they used a range of rhetorical techniques, such as positive and negative characterisation, deferential and emotional language, strongly worded advice and practical problem-solving to perform their duties and demonstrate their allegiance at all costs. It concludes with reflections on the significance of servants’ emotional, political and epistolary engagements.