COURSE DETAIL
Can the language we speak be the reason why we are judged to be guilty instead of innocent? This is just one of the exciting and socially relevant questions that we try to answer within the discipline of this course, which studies language in legal contexts, such as courtroom communication and police interrogation. In this course students learn, for example, that using language in a certain way may result in a more advantageous outcome for the speaker and by contrast, that certain other ways of using language may be considered law-breaking. No prior knowledge of linguistics is required but having some competence in another language in addition to English is an advantage. This course is interdisciplinary and students learn about the ways in which a number of disciplines are related to one another, including linguistics, the law, criminology, and psychology.