“You have to teach the judge what to do”: Semiotic gaps between unrepresented litigants and the common law
-
Matthew W. L Yeung
and
Janny H. C Leung
Abstract
The courtroom can be seen as a semiotic space where the practice of signs is institutionalized. There are specific ways to perform signs in court, be they verbal (e. g., turn-taking) or nonverbal (e. g., attire). Legal signs communicate and signify differently than their non-legal counterparts. Laypeople may not be aware of such differences, and may encounter a gap between their expectation and the actual practice of legal signs. This is precisely the case for unrepresented litigants, laypeople who go to court without legal counsel, whose understanding and practice of signs usually differ from legal ones given their limited exposure to legal knowledge and culture. This paper examines unrepresented litigants’ lay practice of signs in Hong Kong courtrooms, and analyses how it clashes with that used by legal professionals. Our data consist of courtroom observations of 54 Cantonese case managements and 13 Cantonese trials in district courts in Hong Kong, 10 interviews with unrepresented litigants and 6 relevant judgments. The paper shows that the differences in the use of semiotics often place laypeople as out-group members of the law and may limit their access to justice. Our analysis will contribute to an understanding of laypeople’s behavior in the courtroom, which in turn bridges the communication gap between laypeople and legal professionals in common law jurisdictions.
References
Apple Daily. 2012. Dramas need to be surreal. http://hk.apple.nextmedia.com/news/art/20120708/16494680 (accessed 3 August 2014).Search in Google Scholar
Atkinson, J. M. & P. Drew. 1979. Order in court: The organization of verbal interaction in judicial settings. London: Macmillan.10.1007/978-1-349-04057-5Search in Google Scholar
Boon, Andrew. 1999. Advocacy. London: Cavendish.10.4324/9781843141839Search in Google Scholar
Cameron, C., E. Kelly & E. Chiu. 2006. Judges’ perspectives on the impact of self-representation in Hong Kong civil cases. Australian Journal of Asian Law 8. 261–286.Search in Google Scholar
Chandler, Daniel. 2002. Semiotics: The basics. London: Routledge.10.4324/9780203166277Search in Google Scholar
City Law School (London, England). 2010. Advocacy 2008–2009. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Clarke, Catherine, Therese. 1991. Missed manners in courtroom decorum. Maryland Law Review 50(4). 946–1025.Search in Google Scholar
Evans, Keith. 1993. The golden rules of advocacy. London: Blackstone.Search in Google Scholar
Garner, Bryan A. & Henry Campbell Black. 2009. Black’s law dictionary. St. Paul, MN: West.Search in Google Scholar
Hutton, Christopher & Kingsley Bolton. 2005. A dictionary of Cantonese slang: The language of Hong Kong movies, street gangs, and city life. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press.Search in Google Scholar
Judiciary Administration. 2010. Legislative Council Panel on Administration of Justice and Legal Services Statistics on unrepresented litigants. Legislative Council Commission. http://www.legco.gov.hk/yr10–11/english/panels/ajls/papers/aj1122cb2–571–1-e.pdf (accessed 12 March 2012).Search in Google Scholar
Kelly, Elsa. 2005. Litigants in person in civil proceedings: Part III recovering costs. Hong Kong Law Journal 35(2). 309–326.Search in Google Scholar
Kelly, Elsa & Camille Cameron. 2003. Litigants in person in civil proceedings: Part II, solicitors’ perspectives. Hong Kong Law Journal 33. 585–612.Search in Google Scholar
Kelly, Elsa, Camille Cameron & Wing Hong Chiu. 2006. Litigants in person in civil proceedings: Part IV barristers’ perspectives. Hong Kong Law Journal 36. 519–552.Search in Google Scholar
Klein, Linda. 2010. Report on the survey of judges on the impact of the economic downturn on representation in the courts. ABA Coalition for Justice. http://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/migrated/JusticeCenter/PublicDocuments/CoalitionforJusticeSurveyReport.authcheckdam.pdf (accessed23 December 2013).Search in Google Scholar
Leung, J. 2015. Lay Litigation Behaviour in Postcolonial Hong Kong Courtrooms. Language and Law / Linguagem e Direito 2(1). 32–52.Search in Google Scholar
Lewis, Paul. 2007. Litigants in person and their difficulties in adducing evidence: A study of small claims in an English county court. International Journal of Evidence & Proof 11. 24–48.10.1350/ijep.2006.11.1.24Search in Google Scholar
Luo, Zhufeng. 1987. Han yu da ci dian. Xianggang: San lian shu dian Xianggang fen dian.Search in Google Scholar
Magistrates Court of Tasmania, Australia. 2014. Advice to self-represented parties. http://www.magistratescourt.tas.gov.au/going_to_court/advice_to_self-represented_partiesSearch in Google Scholar
McElhaney, James W. 1987. McElhaney’s trial notebook. Chicago: Section of Litigation, American Bar Association.Search in Google Scholar
Mileski, Maureen. 1970–1971. Courtroom encounters: An observation study of a lower criminal court. Law & Society Review 5. 473–538.10.2307/3052769Search in Google Scholar
Moorhead, R. & M. Sefton. 2005. Litigants in person: Unrepresented litigants in First Instance Proceedings. Department of Consitutional Affairs, London. https://www.law.cf.ac.uk/research/pubs/repository/1221.pdf (accessed 23 December 2013).Search in Google Scholar
Ng, K. H. 2009. The common law in two voices: Language, law, and the postcolonial dilemma in Hong Kong. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.10.1515/9780804772358Search in Google Scholar
Provincial Court of Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. n.d. Etiquette & procedures. http://www.court.nl.ca/provincial/goingtocourt/etiquette.html (accessed 5 August 2014).Search in Google Scholar
Rhines, LaTanya D. 1995. Harassment of witnesses by attorneys. Journal of the Legal Profession 20. 331–342.Search in Google Scholar
Ross, David. 2005. Advocacy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Saussure, Ferdinand de. 1983 [1916]. Course in general linguistics, Roy Harris (trans.). London: Duckworth.Search in Google Scholar
Schachner, Robert W. & Marvin Quittner. 2000. How and when to be your own lawyer. Garden City Park, NT: Avery.Search in Google Scholar
Sherr, Avrom. 1993. Advocacy. London: Blackstone Press.Search in Google Scholar
United States Bankruptcy Court Southern District of Illinois. n.d. Courtroom etiquette. http://www.ilsb.uscourts.gov/sites/default/files/CrtEtiquette.pdf (accessed 3 August 2014).Search in Google Scholar
Wilkinson, Michael. 2000. Introduction. In M. Wilkinson & B. Jane (eds.), Reform of the civil process in Hong Kong, 1–62. Hong Kong: Butterworths Asia.Search in Google Scholar
Wilkinson, Michael, Vandana Rajwani & Raymond Pierce. 2007. Advocacy and the litigation process in Hong Kong. Hong Kong: Lexis Nexis.Search in Google Scholar
© 2017 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- La sémiotique juridique verbale et nonverbale comme stratégie de communication du droit: Signs, symbols, and meanings in law
- “Verbal and nonverbal” in semiotics
- The frowning balance: Semiotic insinuations on the visual rhetoric of justice
- Semiotics of visual evidence in law
- Observing laws through “understanding eyes”
- Interpreting law in socio-pragmatic space
- Conceptualizing cultural discrepancies in legal translation: A case-based study
- The first integrated practice of legal translation in modern China: A study of the Chinese translation of Elements of International Law, 1864
- Translations of early Sino-British treaties and the masked western legal concepts
- “Susanna and the Elders”: On the visual semiotic of shame
- Angels, warriors, and beacons: Totemic law, territorial coding, and monumental sculpture in post-industrial landscapes
- Expiration dates: Performative illusions of law and regulation
- From immunity to immunity. From immunity to silence: The case of Gilad Sharon
- Under western eyes: Articulation between indigenous justice and the national judicial system
- Police interpreting: The facts sheet
- The influence of legal tradition on Italian arbitration discourse
- Weighing and balancing of principles in cases with rule paradoxes
- “You have to teach the judge what to do”: Semiotic gaps between unrepresented litigants and the common law
- The semiotic interpretation of legal subjects in China’s new criminal procedure law
- Mission impossible? Judges’ playing of dual roles as adjudicator and mediator in Chinese court conciliation
- “Is it the case that … ?”: Building toward findings of fact in Japanese criminal trials
- Institutional interaction in traffic law enforcement in China: Resistance and obedience
- Duppying yoots in a dog eat dog world, kmt: Determining the senses of slang terms for the Courts
- Les structures sémantiques profondes du code pénal chinois
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- La sémiotique juridique verbale et nonverbale comme stratégie de communication du droit: Signs, symbols, and meanings in law
- “Verbal and nonverbal” in semiotics
- The frowning balance: Semiotic insinuations on the visual rhetoric of justice
- Semiotics of visual evidence in law
- Observing laws through “understanding eyes”
- Interpreting law in socio-pragmatic space
- Conceptualizing cultural discrepancies in legal translation: A case-based study
- The first integrated practice of legal translation in modern China: A study of the Chinese translation of Elements of International Law, 1864
- Translations of early Sino-British treaties and the masked western legal concepts
- “Susanna and the Elders”: On the visual semiotic of shame
- Angels, warriors, and beacons: Totemic law, territorial coding, and monumental sculpture in post-industrial landscapes
- Expiration dates: Performative illusions of law and regulation
- From immunity to immunity. From immunity to silence: The case of Gilad Sharon
- Under western eyes: Articulation between indigenous justice and the national judicial system
- Police interpreting: The facts sheet
- The influence of legal tradition on Italian arbitration discourse
- Weighing and balancing of principles in cases with rule paradoxes
- “You have to teach the judge what to do”: Semiotic gaps between unrepresented litigants and the common law
- The semiotic interpretation of legal subjects in China’s new criminal procedure law
- Mission impossible? Judges’ playing of dual roles as adjudicator and mediator in Chinese court conciliation
- “Is it the case that … ?”: Building toward findings of fact in Japanese criminal trials
- Institutional interaction in traffic law enforcement in China: Resistance and obedience
- Duppying yoots in a dog eat dog world, kmt: Determining the senses of slang terms for the Courts
- Les structures sémantiques profondes du code pénal chinois
