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Palgrave Macmillan

The Language of Jury Trial

A Corpus-Aided Analysis of Legal-Lay Discourse

  • Book
  • © 2005

Overview

Authors:
  1. Chris Heffer

    1. Centre for Language and Communication Research, Cardiff University, UK

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Table of contents (8 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xxi
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  2. Communication in Jury Trial

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 1-1
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    2. Legal-Lay Discourse

      • Chris Heffer
      Pages 3-36

    3. Coming into Court

      • Chris Heffer
      Pages 37-64

    4. The Trial as Complex Genre

      • Chris Heffer
      Pages 65-91

  3. Witness Examination

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 93-93
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    2. The Counsel as Narrator

      • Chris Heffer
      Pages 95-125

    3. The Counsel as Subject

      • Chris Heffer
      Pages 126-153

  4. The Judge’s Summing-up

    1. Front Matter

      Pages 155-155
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    2. Directing the Jury

      • Chris Heffer
      Pages 157-181

    3. (Re) Viewing the Case

      • Chris Heffer
      Pages 182-207

    4. Conclusion

      • Chris Heffer
      Pages 208-219

  5. Back Matter

    Pages 220-253
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Keywords

About this book

Drawing on representative corpora of transcripts from over 100 English criminal jury trials, this stimulating new book explores the nature of 'legal-lay discourse', or the language used by legal professionals before lay juries. Careful analyses of genres such as witness examination and the judge's summing-up reveal a strategic tension between a desire to persuade the jury and the need to conform to legal constraints. The book also suggests ways of managing this tension linguistically to help, not hinder, the jury.

Authors and Affiliations

  • Centre for Language and Communication Research, Cardiff University, UK

    Chris Heffer

About the author

CHRIS HEFFER is a lecturer in the Centre for Language and Communication Research at Cardiff University, Wales, where he teaches forensic linguistics and language and culture.

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