The interaction between language and the law has attracted the attention of researchers in both areas of investigation; linguistics and law studies. Such interest is at its highest in discourse studies in the context of courtrooms. In light of this, many linguists have contributed to a greater understanding of language-based interactions in courtroom settings including matters related to language of the courtroom participants: judges and defendants (Archer, 2006), the language between lawyers and defendants (Aronsson, Jönsson, & Linell, 1987), lawyers and juries (Hobbs, 2007), and the language of lawyers and witnesses (Gnisci & Bakeman, 2007; Roberts, 1990).
Courtroom Discourse
Courtroom discourse is a kind of situated behaviour. It is unique in that it has elaborate contexts built up around it to give it greater meaning: a separate and distinct court building, a courtroom set up specifically for the purpose of a trial, even the date and time are very specific and decided sometimes months in advance. Additionally, courtroom discourse has always been described as frozen discourse in the sense that it follows strict structure and rules as well as the fact that the participants are not free in what or when to say something. However, despite the untouched nature of the discourse inside the court, the language is a rich ground for linguistic investigation.
Special Keys in the Language of the Law
Language inside the courtroom is believed to have its own special keys that distinguishes it from any other language context. First of all, stemming from the hypothesis that every performance is distinguished by a special linguistic code unique to that performance. The unique code of courtroom discourse is perhaps best termed a “register”. On the lexical level courtroom discourse has many words or definitions of words that are used only in legal contexts. In addition to lexical differences the use of formal terms of address, such as full names, mister/misses/miss, and ‘your honour’ helps support the idea of a special courtroom code.
Although the language of the courtroom limits the speakers into a rigid register, figurative language is also present. This happens when the judge or the jury refers to the guilt of any of the defendants. One more distinctive key code in the language of the courtroom is parallelism. This can be found in the different repetitive instances in the language. For example, the repetition and variation of the statement of a witness, with each variation containing a new way to mark uncertainty, is used to foreground the fact that the witness does not know what happened but has some ideas about it.
Moreover, the language of the courtroom is never free from paralinguistic features such as voice qualities, intonation, stress, facial expressions, gaze, silence, etc. These paralinguistic features can uncover much of the language’s emotional load. In addition to the paralinguistic features, speakers’ performance inside the courtroom follows the rules of communication in a way that preserves each role assigned to the participants. Those participants cooperate to ensure a correct interaction.
In light of this, it can be stipulated that the legal language follows the Gricean maxims of conversation: the maxims of quantity, quality, relevance, and manner. The witnesses, for instance, are required to tell only what they believe to be true. On the other hand, only lawyers have the right to issue objections where necessary. Moreover, defendants must communicate as much as is required no more no less and their answers must be relevant to the questions directed to them, otherwise, their speech would be neglected.
In conclusion, further research on the present topic is needed to understand different aspects of language in a controlled context like the courtroom. It opens a wide range of areas of investigation such as understanding the workings of courtroom discourse from the viewpoint of power (CDA), strategic manoeuvring, persuasion, deception, and more.
