Examining and understanding linguistics in criminal and domestic setting involve language evidence. The language evidence exists in trademark area disputes, question authorship and product liability. Heffer, 2005 asserts that some forensic language view language analysis to be the only content in the discipline. Language analysis adheres to the definition of discipline in which the language derives its foundation. I, therefore, determined the conception of forensic linguistic, which is the intersection of law and language. After reading Heffer, 2005, I established the aim of the intersection, and I realized the bases that support the language. I realized that language differs from every context. The language used in the courtroom and police station differs from each other. Heffer, 2005 confirms that, in a courtroom case, a judge posses’ license to speak but the accused always given little chance to speak. This leads to a formularize flow of events that audiences closely follow.
The determination to find out the use of language in the courtroom made me watch the short movie, Witness for the Prosecution, The Verdict. The movie is a short story courtroom drama that deals with trying a man who the court accused of murder. Drama and humor fills the courtroom as the trial proceeds. According to the movie, the trial is about Leonard Vole, who the court accuses that he killed a rich widow. The proceeding continues to draw attention when Sir Wilfred Roberts, a lawyer, defies his doctor’s warning to keep off court cases because of his health conditions. He shows his lawyer power by maintaining his stand on protecting his client. The prosecutor convinces the jury that Vole is guilty. Heffer, 2005 shows how lawyers and prosecutors engage in a war of words to convince the jury on the innocence and guilt of Vole. Ruta Lee, the spectator in the court, throws the court into drama when he sobbed uncontrollably in the court. This makes the court proceeding stop at some moments reducing tension in the court.
Heffer, 2005 emphasizes that the language used in the courts use technical and colloquial vocabulary and the court participants use them in distinctive ways. I discovered that the courts use technical words like adjourn, jurist, pari delicto to mean the case having equal guilt or fault. Heffer, 2005 confirms that the courts’ languages involve the use of noun phrases that are lengthy; they use passive voice in their sentences. The courts languages involve grammatical structures that embed subordinate clauses. The excerpt from the Witness of the Prosecution confirms that the court's language uses passive voice.
Heffer shows how intonation and pronunciation of speech occurs in the courtroom, 2005. He confirmed that the jury has a high intonation and a firm pronunciation. This is because they have to be firm in their judgment delivery. Heffer, 2005 confirm that, the prosecutor and lawyers use persuasive words to move the jury to their advantage. The accused have a low intonation because he tries to defend himself for the wrath of the jury. The jury, prosecutor and the lawyer use language to show their power in the course of proceeding. They use persuasive words to move the audience and the juries to prove that what they are saying are facts.
Heffer, 2005 discloses that the courts have discourse orientation that the courts use. They use ritualistic, strategic and deliberative discourses. The ritualistic courses are the usual activity that goes on in the courts like swearing. Heffer, 2005, asserts that strategic courses are the words the courts uses to start or end proceedings, like opening and closing speech. Deliberative course is the sentence the jury sums up the proceedings and gives judgments.
I believe that the courtroom courses to be inaccurate because they are not the foundation for the entire proceeding of the court. Heffer confirms that the discourses do not control the court proceedings to continue in an organized way, 2005. I, therefore, find that the court should not use the discourses for the systematic flow of proceedings in the court.
References
Heffer, C. (2005). The Language of the Jury Trial: A corpus- Aided Analysis of Legal- Lay
Discourse. New York: Palgrave Macmillian.
