Publication details
The Ins and Outs of Interlinguistic Mediation in the Legal English classroom
| Authors | |
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| Year of publication | 2023 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Description | The Ins and Outs of Interlinguistic Mediation?in the Legal English classroom With the gradual implementation of the approaches introduced by the 2020 CEFR Companion volume, linguistic mediation has strengthened its place in teaching languages on all levels of education, with tertiary education being no exception. University students as future experts in their chosen subjects need to acquire skills to be able to effectively communicate complex problems and ideas in their fields of expertise to lay audiences. This can be done within one language (intralinguistic mediation) or between two different languages (inter or cross-linguistics mediation). Practitioners in the field of law can find themselves in situations where they may need either of them, depending on the source of materials that needs to be mediated. Different levels of sophistication may also need to be employed, conditioned by whether a lawyer is communicating with a client, or to a colleague from another country. This presentation will predominantly focus on teaching interlinguistic mediation skills to future lawyers. It will discuss different approaches to using profession related documents and texts in the native language of the learners in the Legal English class (e.g. cease and desist letter, written warning, lease, laws) and it will also show several scenarios designed for this particular purpose, both oral and in writing. A practicing lawyer may need to engage in mediation of both written texts and oral discourse, and it is therefore important to cover both these productive skills in teaching Legal English to law undergraduates. |