The Language of Jury Trial: A Corpus-Aided Analysis of Legal-Lay Discourse

By Chris Heffer

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.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 134952137X
• ISBN13: 9781349521371
• Release Date: January 2005
• Publisher: Palgrave MacMillan
• Length: 253 Pages
• Weight: 0.78 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.5" x 8.5"