28.1044, Confs: Applied Linguistics/USA

[The LINGUIST List]

LINGUIST List: Vol-28-1044. Tue Feb 28 2017. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 28.1044, Confs: Applied Linguistics/USA

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Date: Tue, 28 Feb 2017 14:18:25
From: Janet Randall [randall at neu.edu]
Subject: The Syntax of Justice: Law, Language, Access & Exclusion

 
The Syntax of Justice: Law, Language, Access & Exclusion 

Date: 30-Mar-2017 - 31-Mar-2017 
Location: Boston Massachusetts, USA 
Contact: Stephen Evans 
Contact Email: s.evans at neu.edu 
Meeting URL: http://www.northeastern.edu/law/news/events/2017/syntax-justice/index.html 

Linguistic Field(s): Applied Linguistics 

Meeting Description: 

 It’s easy to underestimate the importance of clear writing.

Consider this excerpt of a California jury instruction:

''Failure of recollection is common. Innocent misrecollection is not
uncommon.''

Now consider the rewritten version:

''People often forget things or make mistakes in what they remember.''

Law is where we put into words what we consider to be appropriate conduct. At
times, this wording may be difficult to understand — thus defeating its
purpose. Similar problems arise when words or sentences are ambiguous, when a
word has a specialized meaning or when words are added unnecessarily and
contribute no meaning. Many words depend on context while others have
connotations that may not be clear. And some words mean very different things
in different dialects of English.

These problems invite us to examine issues that arise not only in legal
language, but also in language in general. For example:

- The tension between precise technical vocabulary and obfuscational jargon
- How to write laws that everyone can understand
- The challenge of developing plain language jury instructions that capture
the law in terms understandable to all jurors
- The ways that literal interpretation and plain text meaning are insufficient
to capture the nuance of language familiar in ordinary conversation

This conference will focus on how language can lead to exclusion and
injustice, and how to overcome these problems via research that recognizes and
points to ways to rectify exclusion and expand access to justice.
 






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