Teaching English to Law Students by Means of Discourse Analysis on the Basis of C. Hoffman’s Comprehensive Approach

Abstract

The study aims to prove that there are advantages of using discourse analysis in teaching a professional foreign language to law students. The article examines in great detail a comprehensive approach to teaching the United States legal discourse to foreign students, developed by C. Hoffman and implemented at Georgetown University. The authors propose content of the legal English course for the Russian law students of senior years and describe the steps necessary to organise a class session with discourse analysis involvement. Scientific novelty of the study lies in identifying advantage of using discourse analysis in legal English acquisition. As a result of the research, it is proved that through the use of discourse analysis, students get an opportunity to familiarise with specificities of a foreign legal system and a target language itself in the context of the presented sample of legal discourse.