discourse and the law

[Mary Bucholtz]

Well, Georgina, since you asked....

My research on legal discourse mostly concerns how linguistic evidence is
represented in transcripts (which is related to my larger interest in the
representation of language within language). I've done a piece on the
pragmatics of translation in a drug-dealing case against two Spanish
speakers, which argued that the FBI's translation of the defendants'
covertly taped conversation represented them in a biased way. I've also
recently written an article that examines a videotaped police interrogation
of a defendant; the transcript submitted to the court didn't match the
video in significant ways, thereby obscuring the police officer's efforts
to make a deal with the suspect.

The reference for the first piece is "Language in Evidence: The Pragmatics
of Translation in the Judicial Process," in Marshall Morris (ed.),
Translation in the Law, John Benjamins, 1995, pp. 115-129. The second piece
is part of a larger article called "The Politics of Transcription" (an
issue I'd love to delve into on the list, if anyone's interested). That
article is under review, but I'm happy to send out a copy to you or anyone
else who wants one.

Mary