Post by Stephen Horowitz, Professor of Legal English
Georgetown Law Legal English faculty member Prof. John T. Dundon was invited to present over the weekend at the American Association for Applied Linguistics (AAAL) Annual Conference in Portland, Oregon (March 18-21, 2023), in his capacity as a doctoral student in sociolinguistics. Georgetown’s Linguistics Department was well-represented at AAAL this year, and a number of Prof. Dundon’s professors and classmates also gave talks or participated in colloquia.
Prof. Dundon’s talk, titled “Challenging monolingual ideology in the U.S. judicial systems: A proposal for multilingual courts,” focused on one of the many intersections between law and linguistics.
Abstract:
Courts in the United States operate almost exclusively in English, but not everyone who needs to make use of them is able to do so in English. The legal system’s current solution to this problem is for trial participants to communicate through an interpreter whenever one is needed. However, the lack of funding for interpreters, the unavailability of qualified interpreters, and complications arising from the difficulties inherent in real-time translation make this a very imperfect solution. This paper begins by evaluating this current “English only” paradigm using a value-critical policy analysis framework (Rein, 1976; Schmidt, 2014). It is argued that the centering of English in the court system, and relegation of other languages to an interpreter-mediated periphery, is driven by the “protagonist” of monolingual ideology, albeit under a rubric of serving the administrative convenience of the state. This paper then proposes an alternative system, based in part on Ng (2009), in which U.S. courts would occasionally conduct their business in languages other than English. In particular, a pilot program that would use Spanish-language courts is described. Such a system would rightly prioritize other stakeholders besides the government, such as litigants themselves, witnesses, and community members. Legal scholarship and case law is consulted to answer difficult questions, such as how to ensure that Spanish-speaking judges and attorneys are available in adequate number, the legality of empaneling of juries composed of solely of Spanish speakers, and the possibility of appellate review by a legal system that remains English-dominant. The paper concludes with a policy analysis of these proposed non-English courts, concluding that such a system would replace what is currently a tolerance-oriented approach to multilingualism with one that is more promotion-oriented (Wiley and de Korne, 2014) and that views language as a resource, rather than as a problem (Ruiz, 1984).
This subject matter is related to Prof. Dundon’s hoped-for dissertation topic regarding language ideologies in the United States court system, such as English monolingualism, referential transparency, and the (false) binary distinction between fully-proficient users and fully-“deficient” non-users of languages.
Several other presentations at the AAAL conference pertained to interdisciplinary work in linguistics and law, and Prof. Dundon felt very fortunate to meet several of the scholars whose work has most influenced his own research agendas.
Sounds like a very interesting session! Great work, John! And thanks for sharing, Stephen.