Can Linguists Help Judges Know What They Mean?
Linguistic Semantics in the Court-Room Goddard, Cliff Forensic Linguistics, 1996, 3, 2, 250-272 Ways that semantics may assist judges in establishing the ordinary meaning of words are considered, drawing on a description of the major schools of contemporary semantics. It is shown that experts in the field disagree in their basic assumptions & methods. In an analysis of a recent American survey research study (Cunningham, C. D., et al, 1994), it is demonstrated that although attractive for its seemingly empirical basis, the survey method has many shortcomings. The reductive paraphrase approach developed by Anna Wierzbicka (1995, 1996) is favored as a valuable tool for conceptual analysis in legal contexts. However, it is argued that because the field of lexical semantics is fragmented & underdeveloped, judges would be ill-advised to consider linguists as experts on word meanings. 36 References. Adapted from the source document back to top • A Different Story: Narrative versus ‘Question
