Publication details
Linguistic Mediation Taught and Tested: Fine-tuning the Task Design in Legal English
| Authors | |
|---|---|
| Year of publication | 2023 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Description | Linguistic Mediation Taught and Tested: Fine-tuning the Task Design in Legal English Linguistic mediation, as the skill of communicating potentially complex technical issues in a manner a lay person can understand, is bread and butter for all lawyers who deal with clients in the course of their work. For that reason, it should be at the forefront of attention of Legal English instructors, having a central place in their design of course syllabi, mediation practice exercises and final exam tasks. The presentation focuses on the intricacies of all of the three stages of acquisition of mediation skills. It demonstrates how the concept can be introduced to students (by contrasting linguistic and legal mediation), how students can be guided through the production process, and how they can be eventually tested. The talk presents several sample tasks for both intralinguistic and cross-linguistic (i.e. interlinguistic) mediation, in order to illustrate how this skill can be practiced within a single language (e.g. by converting English Legalese into Plain Language), as well as where the source text that is to be mediated is in a language other than English. The presentation argues that using mediation tasks in end-of-course tests is particularly desirable as the test-takers need to demonstrate not only their knowledge of legal concepts but also mastery of language skills, particularly their ability to adjust the language to fit particular addressees. |