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The field of forensic linguistics is a niche area that has not enjoyed much participation from the African continent. The theme of language and the law in this book is one that straddles two important aspects of the legal history of South Africa in particular, and how it has impacted on the country?s legal and education systems. The declaration, by the United Nations, of 2019 as ?The International Year of Indigenous Languages? is opportune, not only for the launch of this book, but for what its research content tells us of the strides taken in ensuring access to justice for all citizens of the world in a language they understand. The contributions by authors in this book tell the story of many African citizens, and those hailing from beyond our borders, who straddle the challenges of linguistic and legal pluralism in courtrooms across their respective countries. It is our hope that the contributions made in this book will assist in ensuring human rights become a reality for global citizens where indigenous voices have not been heard; and that these citizens will be free to give their testimonies in a language of their choice, and that they may be heard and understood.
A Handbook on Legal Languages and the Quest for Linguistic Equality in South Africa and Beyond is an interdisciplinary publication located in the discipline of forensic linguistics/ language and law. This handbook includes varying comparative African and global case studies on the use of language(s) in courtroom discourse and higher education institutions: Kenya; Morocco; Nigeria; Australia; Belgium Canada and India. These African and global case studies form the backdrop for the critique of the monolingual English language of record policy for South African courts, the core of this handbook, discussed in relation to case law and the beleaguered legal interpretation profession. This handbook argues that linguistic transformation and decolonisation of South Africa’s legal and higher education systems needs to be undertaken where legal practitioners are linguistically equipped to litigate in a bilingual/ multilingual courtroom that enables access to justice for the majority of African language speaking litigants, enforcing their constitutional language rights.
A sweeping account of the global rise of English and the high-stakes politics of languageSpoken by a quarter of the world's population, English is today's lingua franca- - its common tongue. The language of business, popular media, and international politics, English has become commodified for its economic value and increasingly detached from any particular nation. This meteoric "rise of English" has many obvious benefits to communication. Tourists can travel abroad with greater ease. Political leaders can directly engage their counterparts. Researchers can collaborate with foreign colleagues. Business interests can flourish in the global economy. But the rise of English has very real downsi...
Language and the Law: Global Perspectives in Forensic Linguistics from Africa and beyond is the third volume in a series of books designed to contribute and respond to growing interest in forensic linguistics or language and the law on the African continent. Drawing mostly on contexts where traditional African laws and Western laws are practised side-by-side, and where there are discontinuities between local knowledge systems, belief systems and language practices on the one hand, and official languages of law discourse, conceptualisation and jurisprudence documentation on the other, the chapters in this volume problematise, among other issues, the mediation practices (or lack thereof) of language and legal processes, discourse strategies and complexities in (mis)interpretations in second language court contexts and the miscarriage of justice that these may entail.
A new study of the importance of language for sociocultural change in Africa, from postcolonial to globally competitive knowledge societies.
The field of forensic linguistics, which integrates the fields of language and the law, is not only a necessity in Africa but also a lifeblood in the entire administration of justice. Hopefully, the emergence of this field and the inroads it is bound to make on the multilingual and culturally diverse continent shall ameliorate the adverse effects of the African diaspora, given the high density of languages and the polarity of its people. Notwithstanding the noble intentions of administrators of justice, the language and interpretation/translation barriers, which often hinder the desired results. This is not only prevalent in the criminal justice system but also rears its ugly head in civil t...
This Element introduces the study of forensic linguistics, particularly in southern Africa, but also in Africa more generally. In the past six decades, there has been clear evidence that the discipline of forensic linguistics is, or was, unknown to general linguists, legal linguists, and applied linguists on the African continent. Now, however, the situation is rapidly changing, with forensic linguistics studies gaining momentum in various parts of Africa. In this Element the authors introduce the topic, define the discipline, address the language of record issue in southern Africa, as well as critically debate the state of court interpreting and translation of documentation into African languages, address police interviewing techniques, while also looking at possible future developments in the discipline of forensic linguistics. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
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