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The consequences and effects of language transformations in legal discourse

  • Frank Nuessel EMAIL logo
Published/Copyright: February 12, 2016

Abstract

The discursive use of language in legal contexts is multifaceted and complex. First, it begins with the chain of oral narrative structures (victim, witness, suspect accounts) and written texts (confessions, notes, depositions, letters, Internet documents, email, tweets, telephone records) used in a court of law. The transcription of oral communiqués is a potentially transformative phase of evidence production that may be flawed (ambiguity, error, mistakes, gaps, misrepresentation). Second, it includes or/excludes the textual and narrative representation of nonverbal communication (kinesics, paralanguage, proxemics) and how it is recorded (transcripts, graphics, video, enactments). At each stage of the legal process, interpretation of narrative structures and texts plays a key role in the ultimate meaning of verbal and nonverbal communication. Third, it concerns interrogation strategies and tactics in preliminary evidence gathering as well as in the courtroom. Fourth, it involves translation of documents written in another language or interpretation of oral statements in another language to the language of the courtroom.

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Published Online: 2016-2-12
Published in Print: 2016-3-1

©2016 by De Gruyter Mouton

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Frontmatter
  2. Introduction: Hidden meanings in legal discourse
  3. Comparing the incomparable and legal discourse
  4. Two assumptions in legal discourse: To answer for self and to tell the truth
  5. Le sens caché: Refoulement et impensé dans le discours de la loi sémiotique des significations cachées du discours juridique
  6. Multiple historical and social layers of interpretation of marital rape in England
  7. Revisiting judgment translation in Hong Kong
  8. Exemption and exegesis: Judicial interpretation of exemption clauses in England, Australia, and India
  9. Identifying the meanings hidden in legal texts: The three conditions of relevance theory and their sufficiency
  10. The consequences and effects of language transformations in legal discourse
  11. Exploring identities in police interrogations
  12. Rights, responsibilities, and resistance: Legal discourse and intervention legislation in the Northern Territory in Australia
  13. An exploration of the semantic domain of legal language
  14. The hidden meanings in the case law of the European Court for Human Rights
  15. Crimes of the sign: Politics and performatives in the Treason Trials of 1794
  16. Showing what “marriage” is: Law’s civilizing sign
  17. A sociosemiotic approach to the legal dispute over the crime of whoring with an underage girl in China
  18. Uncovering hidden meanings in legal discourse on the elderly: A semioethical perspective
  19. Deontic meaning making in legislative discourse
  20. Hidden meanings of the words “religion” and “religious” in legal discourse
  21. Hidden cultures in law: Metaphor and translation in legal discourse
  22. Negotiating language status in multilingual jurisdictions: Rhetoric and reality
  23. Burying attitudes in words: Linguistic realization of the shift of judges’ court conciliation style
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