7. Participation of Second Language and Second Dialect Speakers in the Legal System

Abstract

Manipulation of language is the key to all participation in the legal system. While linguists, especially sociolinguists, have been researching legal contexts for some two decades, there is still a considerable paucity of research on what happens when second language (L2) and second dialect (D2) speakers come into contact with the ‘language’ of the law. This chapter overviews the current state of theory and research on this topic. As with studies of L1 speakers, most of the studies have analyzed language in courtrooms, where access to data is much easier than in other legal settings, such as police interviews, mediation sessions or lawyer-client interviews. Most such research addresses one or more of the following questions, with the greatest concentration of research on the second and third of these: (a) What are the interpreting needs of second language speakers? (b) How are these needs being addressed? (c) What are the challenges to the provision of language services to second language speakers? And (d) How do dialectal differences affect the participation of second dialect speakers? The discussion concludes by highlighting a number of questions of crucial legal concern that need to be addressed by applied linguistics research.

Debating credibility

“…The analysis below draws on this concept of "cultural capital", proposing and examining In such a situation, the inability to communicate in the prescribed way may limit or distort the information the speaker is able share, or even completely silence them, with potentially very serious repercussions (such as the situation described in Piller, 2016, pp. 60-61) (see also examples in Angermeyer, 2015;Eades, 2003Eades, , 2008Eades, , 2012.…”

“…I stumbled across some articles on communication in refugee visa applications (Barnett, 2006;Eades, 2003;. They emphasised how important communication was in asylum procedures, especially as institutional and public discourses increasingly focused on scrutinizing whether or not asylum seekers were "genuine".…”

Cross-jurisdiction appropriation of the equal authenticity principle

“…The motivation for the Hong Kong judiciary to uphold true linguistic equality is limited. Scepticism of the Chinese text in the judiciary, an institutional bias towards monolingualism (Eades 2003) and a strong legal tradition in the English language could tip the balance in a loosely defined principle of equal authenticity.…”

“What Did She Say? What Did She Say?” the Impact of Interpretation on Recruiting and Interviewing European Migrant Women in the United Kingdom

“…In particular, the importance of ensuring the validity and reliability of communication in the interpretation process is apparent in the literature regarding working with interpreters in health and legal fields (Eades, 2003;Lee, 1997;Tribe, 2005).…”