Volume 3, Issue 2 -

The paper sets out to examine the stability and motivation of collocations with the word laisvė ‘liberty, freedom’ in the Criminal Code of the Republic of Lithuania and tendencies of their rendering into English. The methodology of research relies on the cognitive linguistic principles of embodiment, the understanding of metaphor in terms of cross-domain mappings, the relevance of context and frames. The results demonstrate very stable collocations in Lithuanian, all of which are metaphorically motivated and constitute legal terms. Their translation into English uncovers some tendencies of the same and different conceptualisation of such notions of criminal law as the restriction of liberty, deprivation of liberty, imprisonment and some others. The English terms, equivalents of the selected Lithuanian terms with the word laisvė , are much less metaphorical than could be expected.

Based on the literature review of previous studies in court interaction, this paper tries to confine its discussion into a relatively detailed topic— presuppositions—in both direct examination and cross-examination. The primary aim is to examine the interaction between illocutionary acts, meaning and intentions in court discourse, which is helpful to understand the interaction between different discourse community in judicial system, while the ultimate goal is to investigate the balance between narrative and persuasion achieved by patterns of presuppositions, which are initiated by court questioners: prosecutors and lawyers. This paper finds in direct examination, presuppositions make evidence more admissible, witness more credible and therefore narrative more coherent, believable; in cross-examination, presuppositions are mainly used to challenge the credibility of the hostile witness and therefore deconstruct the narrative of the opposite lawyer. A presupposition is a method of verifying or challenging facts and credibility.

In this research project, we introduce an interdisciplinary study of language and the law—forensic linguistics. In the field of forensic linguistics, the topic of discourse probably receives the most study. The discourse phenomenon we investigated is interruption, commonly regarded as a display of power and control. Our study concentrated on observing the distributions and functions of interruption that take place in criminal courtroom discourse. Given the unique features in criminal courtroom discourse, such as the highly institutionalized nature, the strong goal orientation, the unique question–answer interaction pattern, its rigid procedure and the high stakes for the defendants, the interruption phenomenon greatly deviates away from that in other settings. For our observation, we collected data from the trial proceedings of criminal courts. The main concern is to determine whether the defendants’ right to speak and to be heard is respected by the other participants in the courtroom. Too much interruption may prevent the defendants from explaining themselves, thus infringing on their legal rights. Overall, judges and prosecutors interrupt considerably more frequently than defense lawyers and defendants. The asymmetry in treatment towards the participants in court trials can be censorable. In addition, we found that time pressure prevented judges from giving participants sufficient time to express themselves.

Implementing plain legal language is a project for those who are trying to build trust in legal systems all over the world. This paper aims at comparing successful policies in certain countries and describing the efforts made towards achieving a Spanish plain legal discourse. The paper lays out the definition of plain language, reviews the reluctance of professionals to make changes in legal language and specifies which legal documents are under discussion. The long-standing plain English movement and the positive Swedish example are considered, in combination with the ongoing developments of the German and French legal languages. It then analyses the legislative process within the European Union and uncovers the need for more collaboration between jurists and linguists. Adding to these case studies, this paper interrogates the contemporary state of legal Spanish. Despite institutional efforts in various countries, which are detailed in the last section, legal Spanish remains obscure and holds back the democratization of justice. Taking into account that Spanish is the second-most widely spoken language in the world and the wide use of the Internet for legal matters, the need to clarify legalese is more pressing than ever. The demand for trust in justice advances incessantly, but the implementation of a transparent legal discourse seems to be at a standstill.

It is said that metaphor is often than not ignored in forensic language in respect of legislation, judiciary, law enforcement and dissemination, as people think that law is a rigorous discipline and legal language is rigid, and that the use of metaphor can make the law lose its accuracy and authority. Then what is the truth? Based on the Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT), this study aims to investigate the conceptual metaphor in the cognitive domain of law. The authors have conducted a text analysis and a follow-up review on Company Law of the People’s Republic of China ( PRC Company Law for short) and extracted five categories of conceptual metaphor centering on A COMPANY IS A LEGAL PERSON, including its identity, rights, obligations, liabilities and relationship with other companies.

What’s responsibility Sanchi oil tanker should take under Chinese law? Under the initiative of the belt and one road, especially Maritime Silk Road, China Maritime Court has extended jurisdiction to cover all cases arising from seawater since 2016, which means that China Maritime Court has criminal and administrative jurisdiction in maritime affairs besides civil jurisdiction in the near future. The compound mode of jurisdiction is one of the most important steps in the judicial reform of China. This development will affect maritime legislation deeply, especially marine pollution law. China has made the great improvement in marine pollution legislation in the past forty-five years. However, due to the old administrative pattern of land-based strategy, “from many doors” becomes the difficult pyridoxine for practice; Chinese governments used to depending on the special regulations instead of Ocean Basic Law to regulate marine pollution act, there is no global law to regulate marine pollution act up to now. Based on the results of marine pollution cases judged or solved by the China Maritime Court, marine polluter only needs to pay economic damages and there is no criminal liability. For solving practical matters more efficiently and thoroughly, and for protecting the marine environment more globally, we’d better adjust administrative management pattern, make Ocean Basic Law, and set multiple liabilities for marine polluter and unify marine pollution legislation.