Discursive Constructions of Consent in the Legal Process

As a linguistically-grounded, critical examination of consent, this volume views consent not as an individual mental state or act but as a process that is interactionally-and discursively-situated. It highlights the ways in which legal consent is often fictional (at best) due to the impoverished view of meaning and the linguistic ideologies that typically inform interpretations and representations in the legal system. The authors are experts in linguistics and law, who use diverse theoretical and analytical approaches to examine the complex ways in which language is used to seek, negotiate, give, or withhold consent in a range of legal contexts. Authors draw on case studies, or larger research corpora or a wider sociolegal approach, in investigations of: police-citizen interactions in the street, police interviews with suspects, police call handlers, rape and abduction trials, interactions with lay litigants in a multilingual small claims court, a restorative justice sentencing scheme for young offenders, biomedical research, and legal disputes over contracts.

Auteur

Susan Ehrlich is Professor of Linguistics at York University in Toronto. Diana Eades is Adjunct Professor at University of New England. Janet Ainsworth is the John D. Eshelman Professor of Law at Seattle University and Research Professor in the Research Center for Legal Translation at China University of Political Science and Law.

Contenu

Chapter 1 Introduction: Linguistic and Discursive Dimensions of Consent Susan Ehrlich and Diana Eades Section 1: Free and voluntary consent Chapter 2 Culture, cursing, and coercion: The impact of police officer swearing on the voluntariness of consent to search in police-citizen interactions Janet Ainsworth Chapter 3 Post-penetration rape: Coercion or freely-given consent? Susan Ehrlich Chapter 4 Erasing context in the courtroom construal of consent Diana Eades Section 2: Informed consent vs. ritualized consent Chapter 5 Talking the ethical turn: Drawing on tick-box consent in policing Frances Rock Chapter 6 Transparent and opaque consent in contract formation Lawrence Solan Chapter 7 The empty performative?: Informed consent to genetic research John Conley, R. Jean Cadigan and Arlene Davis Section 3: The influence of discursive practices Chapter 8 Promoting litigant consent to arbitration in multilingual small claims court Philipp Sebastian Angermeyer Chapter 9 Consent and compliance in youth justice conferences? Michele Zappavigna, Paul Dwyer and J. R. Martin Chapter 10 Non-consent and discursive resistance: Radical reformulation in a post-sting police interview Philip Gaines Section 4: The coercive force of cautions Chapter 11 Totality of circumstances and translating the Miranda warnings Susan Berk-Seligson Chapter 12 Negotiating the right to remain silent in inquisitorial trials Fleur van der Houwen and Guusje Jol Chapter 13 'No comment' responses to questions in police investigative interviews Elizabeth Stokoe, Derek Edwards and Helen Edwards