Language and Law in Professional Discourse: Issues and Perspectives

This edited volume brings together international scholars from within applied linguistics to examine the ways in which the complex and diverse issues of Language and Law play themselves out in discursive and professional genres. Specifically, this volume is the end-product of the 2nd International Conference ‘Law, Language and Professional Practice’ held at the Department of Law of the Seconda Università degli Studi di Napoli (10-12 May 2012), where keynote lectures and several papers revolved around the central theme. As such, the volume is a carefully selected collection of research papers presented by such scholars and reshaped into chapters after a blind-review process. The volume shares its roots with other selected, peer-reviewed papers from the same Conference published in the volume Language and Law in Academic and Professional Settings - Analyses and Applications of the Explorations in Language and Law international series (Novalogos, 1/2013). Both editorial sites thus encourage a wider overview of the state-of-the-art description of the existing issues of language and law in professional practice debated at the Conference. The nine chapters in this volume are organised into two Parts addressing topic areas of legal discourse (written and spoken) relevant to professional practice and communication, namely: issues related to the construction, use and accessibility of legislative, judicial and web-mediated discourse; and those related to authority, power and identity.