Teaching Reading for Case Law in English for Legal Purposes

This article presents findings from a study that sought to identify the language and communication needs of students who were studying for the Certificate in Law at the University of Botswana. Data for the study was collected using a questionnaire and information recorded from class discussions and simulated court proceedings. The findings obtained from the study were used to design a module for teaching English for Academic Purposes (EAP). Key words: Analysis of students communication needs; legal discourse; English for Legal Purposes; English for Legal Academic Purposes; Legal Discourse Analysis (J Language Teaching: 2003 37(1): 104-119)

Research in English for Legal Purposes (ELP) has expanded in the past 30 years, in parallel with the increasing attractiveness of transnational legal education. The present paper aims at observing how ELP research has dealt with the issue of globalisation of law studies, considering that legal taxonomies remain largely national. The analysis expands on the application of Anthropological Structures of the Imaginary (ASI) theory (Durand 1969) to a language policy context to describe the positioning of ELP researchers and law experts in relation to each other. Focusing on the notion of posture, an the analysis of images in a corpus of 68 ELP research papers suggests that the theme of obscurity lies at the heart of ELP research discourse. Power-related images fall into the four broad categories of animality, depression, the fall and the labyrinth. The contribution of ASI theory to the study of the micropolitics of ELP thus appears to be two-fold. ASI theory sheds light on the metadiscourse on power that runs through ELP research and that helps understand agents' positioning. ASI theory applied to ELP research eventually sheds light on the aporia (Glanert, 2005) Legal English researchers and law experts are faced with in an English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) context. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7220/2335-2027.6.4

This study is concerned with investigation of the importance of the four English Language Skills in teaching a new ELP (English for Legal purposes) Course Design.The present study is limited to the first-year students in the College of Law / Tikrit University during the academic year 2017/ 2018.It is hypothesized that in teaching a new ESP course, i.e., LE, all the four English language skills are extremely important and should be emphasized in a closely similar degree.This study aims at:1. Designing an ESP course for teaching an ELP (English for legal purposes), according to the analysis of students' constructed needs.2. Investigating whether the four English Language skills are important and should be emphasized in teaching an ELP course.After instruction for six weeks, a situation analysis has been constructed by the application of questionnaire and interview analysis.Results indicate close importance of the four English language skills along with the inclusion of the two elements of language are all required to be emphasized in the proposed specialized legal English course.Finally, in the light of the obtained results, a number of conclusions, recommendations and suggestions have been put forward.

Teachers of English for Specific Purposes (ESP) often employ needs analysis to identify their students' most important needs and skill gaps. The focus of this study is on the needs and preferences of legal experts in the Republic of Serbia. The study presents findings from an online survey of 101 law professionals aimed at identifying their learning needs, pinpointing key English for Legal Purposes (ELP) skill gaps, examining their attitudes towards ELP, evaluating the significance of English language study during legal education, and providing recommendations on integrating ELP into legal education, emphasizing practical scenarios relevant to the Serbian legal context. Given the multilingual nature of the EU, which Serbia aspires to join, it is essential to equip law students and legal professionals with the interdisciplinary knowledge and language skills necessary for the evolving job market. The importance of ESP for the legal profession is one of the main reasons for determining how familiar legal professionals are with it and their perspectives on the significance of learning the English language within the legal field. The respondents believe that learning ELP should be based on acquiring legal terminology and simulating real-life situations from law firms, courtrooms, business discussions, and circumstances within the Republic of Serbia, rather than reading and analyzing texts about legal practices in England or the USA. The study's findings highlight specific areas that need special emphasis when honing Legal English proficiency: public speaking, vocabulary development, legal writing, and telephone communication.

The course of English for legal purposes has greatly received acceptance in Pakistan. The courses of ELP are not concerned to teach particular terms and phrases to translate texts with the teaching technique of the Grammar Translation method (GTM). Pakistan has been active in participating in International Relations. Therefore, it is significant to expect the attached course of ESP that could facilitate learners in preparation for their career in international outlook. Under this principle, the current theme of the paper is envisioned to give the layout of ELP courses that could tailor to the needs of law undergraduate students in Sindh Law College, Hyderabad. This course is proposed to design its foundation on content-based instruction. The issues are perceived through various angles in different ELP settings. The proposed plan for ELP courses is expected beneficial for teachers and students that are involved in the development of ELP courses in various renowned Universities in Pakistan.

To enable students majoring in translation at the College of Languages and Translation to read, identify the lexical and syntactic features of legal documents and hence comprehend their content, this article proposes an instructional module for teaching English for Legal Purposes (ELP). The module should be based on the assessment of the students’ proficiency level in English and analysis of their academic and professional need. It consists of the most common legal terms such as (alias, amicus, peosequi, res judicata, puisine, puis ne, estoppel fee, simple laches, quash); grammatical structures common in legal documents such as the use of long and complex sentences, conditional clauses, adverbial clusters, long complicated nominal groups, the modal auxiliary shall, and French word order (court martial, heir apparent, secretary general); reading legal documents such as insurance policies, wills, statutes, contracts and agreements between individuals, leases, petitions, investigations...etc. Global legal themes are integrated in the practice material. The students practice listening, speaking, reading, writing and translation. They learn the legal terms and grammatical structures in context (through the text). The instructor performs text analysis. Together with the students, she goes through a legal text, locates legal terms and syntactic structures, and explains and/or translates them. Then the students perform text analysis of new legal texts. Numerous technologies can be integrated into teaching and learning ELP. Assignments are posted on Blackboard LMS, a blog or a social media page. At the end of the instructional period, the students are tested, and the ELP module is evaluated by the students and legal translation instructors. The article recommends that ELP be student-centered. The students should have an active role in the learning process where they select legal topics to read, talk, write about and translate.

In an ESP (English for Specific Purposes) and ELP (English for Legal Purposes) perspective, this paper studies the construction of professional cultural competence through the cultural substrata woven into the narrative of specialised popular fiction, or FASP.After a brief overview of the theoretical framework retained and the functions of a coroner in England and Wales, the discussion focuses on a coronial FASP, M. R. Hall’s The Coroner (2009), to analyse three cultural strands which relate meaningfully to ELP learner objectives: culture specific to the Coroner’s Office, broader social commentary with regard to issues concerning the legal community as a whole and, finally, locus-related societal and national cultures.The paper concludes by addressing reservations expressed regarding such randomly acquired knowledge by highlighting the advantages of a heuristic and semasiological approach in exploring both target and source culture.

Foreign language teaching at the university level has taken on importance and value over the last decade due to global competition between institutions of higher education. For this reason, language educators are faced with the challenge of looking for innovative teaching methods, which not only stimulate and motivate their students while encouraging language acquisition, but also add an intercultural dimension.This teaching note proposes to analyze the use and impact of cinematic resources (film and television series) as resource materials on English for Legal Purposes (ELP) classes designed to promote learner awareness of Anglo-Saxon professional legal culture. After an initial overview of the theoretical background, the article then provides a summary of the method, results and observations. This didactic approach can be applied to any foreign language or discipline such as medical studies, sociolinguistics, psychology, etc.

This article proposes to analyse the use of cinematic FASP (fiction à substrat professionnel) as resource material in English for Legal Purposes (ELP) classes designed to promote learner consciousness of Anglo-Saxon professional legal culture.After an overview of the recently identified FASP genre and a presentation of the legal FASP sub-genre, the article sums up the specificities of ELP as opposed to ESP in general.In this context, it then focuses on “the French paradox” — the inversion of source and target professional cultures — one of the specific problems related to teaching ELP to French and other European law students when using culture specific cinematic FASP in a self-learning environment.The article concludes by viewing the didactic problem in a perspective of cultural anthropology to help understand the cognitive and affective processes at work during cultural self-discovery, whether professional or not.

This short paper aims to highlight and concisely explore – but not address in depth -some aspects related to translating and teaching English for specific purposes (mainly English for Legal Purposes) The following questions will be briefly considered: What is the impact of comparative law on legal translation? How can tricky terms in legal translation be taught effectively? How can mediation activities and student self-reflection be utilised to train legal skills? How can teaching plain English to PhD students improve their writing in a scientific context? The paper starts with a brief introduction to the concept of language and communication for specific purposes, with a particular emphasis put on English for Legal Purposes. The second section of the essay refers to issues connected with legal translation; its specificity and the role of comparative law in the quality of translation and interpretation. The third and last part of the paper is dedicated to the issue of instructing languages for specific purposes. It mainly tackles the problem of equipping students with such linguistic competencies, skills, and knowledge which are most valuable for their study and work.

This article deals with mediation in language teaching, focusing on how the practice of mediation – as a specific language skill – can be incorporated in the syllabus. The chapter defines the skill of mediation as an emerging concept in language education, and discusses its potential for effective teaching of English for Specific Purposes in general and English for Legal Purposes in particular. The first part of the text seeks to answer several questions, aiming to determine whether mediation is relevant in the context of legal practice and whether it has a place in an English for Law syllabus. The second part addresses a more practical concern of how the skill of mediation can be practiced by students. The article makes a case for assigning mediation a much more central place in the classroom, giving a number of specific examples of how this soft skill can be developed in the teaching of ESP and ELP.

This article assesses the validity of the shareholder primacy norm, with particular focus on the pre and post Companies Act 2006 implications of shareholder primacy in English company law. Prior to the Companies Act 2006, much was written about shareholder primacy, which assumed it to be the basis of corporate governance in English law. In testing the validity of that assumption, this article examines the historical application of partnership principles to corporate governance, the case law often called in aid of the shareholder primacy norm, and finds that shareholder primacy remains at odds with the tenet of corporate legal personality in English law. It concludes that the assumption that shareholder primacy was the basis of corporate governance in English law is a myth.

This article intends to raise awareness of the English law doctrine of licensee estoppel and how it may be relevant in practice. The relevant English case law and its relationship with English statute and European legislation are discussed. Many practitioners are unaware of the nature and significance of licensee estoppel under English law. The doctrine of licensee estoppel seems at first sight to run contrary to European competition law: this situation is made more complicated by the fact that European legislation and case law seems to presume that such a doctrine does not exist. Once the doctrine itself and its relationship with European competition law have been explained, the remedies that are available and commercially relevant to licensees become clearer. These considerations are relevant to practitioners drafting and negotiating technology transfer agreements under English law, as well as to those advising licensors and licensees on their rights and available remedies.

Needs analysis and English for Legal Purposes Course Development: A Case Study on an ELP Syllabus Design for University Students. The present paper investigates the connection between students’ learning needs as reflected in the initial needs analysis and ELP syllabus design. Initiated at the beginning of the academic year the study investigates solutions to bridge the gap between the linguistic and professional needs of students attending legal English classes and their course syllabus. A typical challenge for the students’ instructor is the fact that they have little, typically no prior experience with the profession for which they hope to qualify during their studies. The fact that compulsory language courses are often placed in the students’ first year of bachelor study programmes makes the intention to offer relevant course content even more difficult. The structure of the article is the following: first is given a scope for the study, then needs analysis is presented in relation to teaching ESP for the general public and university students; finally, the findings are interpreted in the context of changes in teaching strategies and course design. The article concludes by pointing out that taking into consideration students’ expectations and needs is strongly correlated with the quality and the relevance of the course. REZUMAT. O analiză a corelării nevoilor de învăţare cu conţinutul cursului: studiu de caz-elaborarea unui syllabus de limbaj juridic în limba engleză pentru studenţi. Articolul de faţă analizează legătura dintre nevoile de învăţare ale studenţilor aşa cum sunt ele reflectate în analiza de nevoi iniţială şi crearea unui syllabus de curs pentru limbaj juridic. Început la debutul anului universitar, studiul investighează soluţii pentru micşorarea decalajului dintre nevoile lingvistice şi profesionale ale studenţilor care participă la cursul de limbaj juridic de specialitate şi syllabusul de curs. Una din încercările la care e supus profesorul într-o asemenea situaţie este faptul că, în general, studenţii primului an au o părere foarte vagă despre cunoştinţele pe care ar trebui să le posede în limbajul de specialitate referitor la profesia pe care o vor îmbrăţişa. Structura articolului este următoarea: se prezintă scopul studiului, apoi se discută relaţia dintre analiza nevoilor de învăţare şi predarea limbajelor de specialitate publicului larg şi studenţilor; în cele din urmă sunt interpretate rezultatele în contextul schimbărilor pe care acestea le aduc în ceea ce priveşte strategia de predare şi conceperea cursului. Concluzia articolului este că luarea în considerare a dezideratelor şi nevoilor studenţilor este în strânsă legătură cu calitatea şi relevanţa cursului. Cuvinte-cheie: ESP, ELP, predarea şi învăţarea limbilor străine, analiza nevoilor de învăţare, creare de curs, nevoi profesionale, studenţi la Drept, educaţie universitară.

The field of teaching English to speakers of other languages (TESOL) abounds with a veritable “alphabet soup” of acronyms: English language teaching (ELT), English‐language learners (ELLs), English for general purposes (EGP), English for academic purposes (EAP), English for specific purposes (ESP), and content‐based instruction (CBI), to name just a few. ESP is particularly rich in acronyms that describe its various subdisciplines: English for science and technology (EST), English for business and economics (EBE), English for legal purposes (ELP), English for medical purposes (EMP), English for occupational purposes (EOP), and so on.