Courtroom Discorse in Common Law Contexts – Past and Present

Autrice: Michela Giordano
Anno: 2016
Pagine: 218
ISBN: 978-88-98692-38-5
Prezzo: € 18,00
Formato: 16×23
Note: Foto di copertina di Manuela Giordano
 

Il libro

The importance of language in the study of courtroom trials has been comprehensively investigated from a series of diverse perspectives. Some of these perspectives are taken into consideration herein to carry out the exploration of various aspects of courtroom discourse, i.e. the witnesses’ testimonies, the transcripts of the proceedings, the particular features of questioning and turn-taking, along with matters related to courtroom interpreting and to the interaction and negotiation of different professional discourses (legal and medical) embedded in this institutional context. This book has been a long time in the making: it starter as a collection of independent papers and it draws together, along with the new material, different investigations of courtroom discourse in Common Law contexts previously presented or published in more highly specific contexts.

L’importanza della lingua nello studio dei processi nelle aule di tribunale di Common Law è stata ampiamente studiata da diverse prospettive. Alcune di queste prospettive sono prese in considerazione in questo testo al fine di esplorare i vari aspetti del linguaggio utilizzato nei tribunali, quali, ad esempio, le testimonianze, le trascrizioni del procedimento, le particolari caratteristiche dell’interrogatorio e dei turni di parola, insieme a questioni relative all’interpretazione della Corte e l’interazione e la negoziazione dei diversi linguaggi professionali (legale e medico) nel contesto istituzionale. Questo libro è iniziato come una raccolta di articoli indipendenti, alcuni pubblicati precedentemente in riviste accademiche specializzate, e poi, con l’aggiunta di nuove ricerche, è diventato un’analisi, anche diacronica e quantitativa, del linguaggio professionale legale nel contesto specifico di casi penali nei tribunali di Common Law, partendo da processi tenuti all’Old Bailey di Londra per arrivare a casi più recenti come quelli di Orenthal J. Simpson negli Stati Uniti e Oscar Pistorius in Sud Africa.
L’Indice / Contents

Introduction

  1. The language of the courtroom
  2. Overview of aims and contents
  3. Witness testimony in the Old Bailey proceedings
  4. Witness testimony as narrative
  5. The Old Bailey Proceedings online: A historical source
  6. Narratives in the courtroom: Primary and Secondary reality
  7. Different categories of witnesses
  8. The language of distance v the language of immediacy
  9. Quoted dialogue in witness narratives
  10. Powerful and powerless witnesses
  11. Transcripts of trial proceedings
  12. Transcripts as official written records of spoken discourse
  13. Transcripts as genre
  14. The decontextualization of written transcripts
  15. Reporter’s comments in Primary and Secondary reality
  16. The narrative mode v the paradigmatic mode
  17. Medical discourse in the historical courtroom
  18. Expert evidence at the Old Bailey
  19. Medical experts in the historical courtroom
  20. Medical jargon embedded in the legal context
  21. Epistemic modality and evidentiality
  22. Lay-professional discourse in an institutional context
  23. The interaction of law and medicine in court
  24. Expert testimony in modern Common Law courts
  25. Professional talk in an institutionalized context
  26. Experts’ contributions to direct and cross-examinations
  27. Forms of adress: The title “Doctor” in court
  28. Courtroom questioning
  29. Construction and deconstruction: identity, credibility and power asymmetry
  30. Lawyer v medical expert: A “complex dialogic framework”
  31. The re-mediation of justice in post-colonial legal discourse
  32. A different perspective: The courtroom drama
  33. Rumpole of the Bailey: An attempt of popularization?
  34. The courtroom drama genre
  35. Intertextuality and parody
  36. Visual symbols and irony
  37. Metaphors and figurative language
  38. The personification of justice
  39. Mockery of the trial process and critique of colonialism
  40. Courtroom drama: Law for lay people?
  41. Court interpreting in multilingual contexts
  42. Interpreting in the South African multilingual courtroom
  43. A theoretical framework of court interpreting
  44. The legal system and the “open justice” in South Africa
  45. Linguistic diversity and court interpreting in South Africa
  46. Witness testimony lost in mistranslation
  47. A redefinition of the role of court interpreters
  48. Metapragmatics in the courtroom
  49. Metapragmatics and reflexivity
  50. Metapragmatic Framing Strategies in courtroom interaction
  51. The negotiation of professional boundaries

Conclusions

References