English for legal studies

Legal English nowadays calls for different levels of specialized expertise within the academic and professional worlds. It must take into account the interaction between speakers, and especially native and non-native ones, but must also be grounded on a sound working knowledge of use within differing register(s) and context(s). This places considerable demands upon the teachers and curriculum designers responsible for teaching legal English to students at university level. They themselves may have trouble in understanding the cognitive complexity of legal documents, and the linguistic realization of that complexity. It is to such meanings that English for Legal Professionals will draw attention. By giving prominence to its users and contexts/sub-genres in a new manner, the book explores legal language – English-speaking jurisdictions, legal genres/text types – and the linguistic needs of law school and legal practice – vocabulary in contexts, basic sentence structure, textual constraints and conventions. The author demonstrates that the teaching of legal English should equip native/non-native learners, as well as professionals, with a clear understanding of how language functions within specific legal context. This book written by Giulia Adriana Pennisi is the new volume of the English Linguistics for Academicians and Professionals (ELAP) series, edited by Laura Pinnavaia and Annalisa Zanola. The ELAP series brings together research in linguistics and related fields within English for Scientific and Professional Purposes. The ELAP series features contributions from both established and emerging scholars, highlighting “language in context(s)”—that is, how individuals across academic and professional disciplines engage with lexico-grammatical competence and language proficiency.