This paper traces the history of remoteness in contract law, namely the legal formants (in Rodolfo Sacco’s terms) constraining the availability of contract damages in various legal systems. Our journey takes us through different times, continents and cultures, from the eighteenth century to the twenty–first century, across the law of France, United States, England and Wales, India and Australia, among other jurisdictions. While it might seem that civilian and common law traditions have very different morphological legal forms, once a closer (...) historical, cultural, and anthropological gaze is turned upon the legal formants involved, it can be seen that remoteness discloses a shared concern which may be common to many human societies and cultures. In other words, as a matter of social experience, humans who enter into transactions generally realise that it is impossible to know the future, or to know what all outcomes of the transaction will be. Consequently, it is recognised that it would be unfair and unjust to hold a defendant liable for all outcomes, and as our journey will show, legal systems seek guidance from other legal systems in their efforts to deal with this problem. (shrink)

This article aims to demonstrate the enduring impact of Rodolfo Sacco’s influential contributions to comparative law on the perspectives of young scholars. It explores two pivotal aspects of his research that continue to significantly influence the work of a young scholar—the theory of legal formant and exploration of the relationship between law and language. The article also briefly highlights the relevance of legal comparison in the contemporary European legal context.

Based on Rodolfo Sacco’s passionate research on cryptotypes and mute law, the essay aims to propose an onto-aesthetic understanding of latency in law. Inspired by a transdisciplinary way of thinking, the Author elevates comparative law to the privileged site where a critique of the unexpressed can be performed; the degree of figurality of the law can be uncovered and measured; an economy of surplus can be disclosed as the proper segnatorial trait of the material appearances of the law. In this (...) direction, comparative law combines a phenomenology of latency with a hermeneutics of the implicit/implied and becomes the place where it is possible to uncover the communality among plural symbolic universes (literature, arts, music) against the tyranny of disciplinary strategy. (shrink)

Rodolfo Sacco developed the idea of “mute behaviours” during his studies on mute law. The notion of “mute behaviours” denotes an action that is able to mould a legal relationship without any use of language. Certainly, this concept may give rise to some doubts in relation to the attribution—to a behaviour qualified as mute—of the capability to affect dynamics involving a plurality of people. Aiming to clarify the idea of “mute behaviours” by this point of view, the authors analysed the (...) semiotic terminology used by Sacco himself to explain this notion and the issue of its silent nature. Therefore, the terms “signifying signs” and “symptoms”, deemed by Sacco—respectively—incompatible and compatible with the theory of mute behaviours were considered. The former term was traced back to the notion of conventional and arbitrary sign, the notion of the latter was reconstructed linking it to the concept of signs based on signification and suggesting a possible framework in view of the idea of “presentative meanings” developed by the philosopher Guido Morpurgo-Tagliabue. Clarified this dichotomy by a terminological analysis, the authors noticed—as affirmed by Rodolfo Sacco himself—the impossibility to ascribe the notion of gesture to the mute behaviour’s category, as some exegetes proposed. Consequently to this last remark, the authors tried to analyse the relationship between gestures and “mute behaviours”, identifying the category of “sema-pragmatic acts”, that includes gestures and may be seen as an intermediate phase between “mute behaviours” and legally relevant behaviours operated by speaking. (shrink)

A certain parallelism between the study of language and comparison in law is detected. Sacco often referred to studies in linguistics. Some references are more obvious while the quotation of Stalin's considerations in the area of language may be more unexpected. The development and adaptation of legal rules to society's evolution are compared with the changes occurring in language: often unpredictable and difficult to govern, indicating some independence of certain cultural expressions from political or economic directives.

Making use as a guideline of a self-authored manuscript—dated February 2000—where the “_Maestro_” reveals himself, this essay explores the academic life and the scholarly achievements of Rodolfo Sacco, the Italian master of comparative law, who just recently passed away. His intellectual endeavor is described throughout the lenses of a common thread that underlies his entire scholarly output: it his ability to illuminate the dark places of law, finding it where no one had sought it before. This is the essence of (...) his original contribution to the understanding of the legal landscape’s dynamics and it is the core of his cultural legacy, not only to comparative lawyers, but also to the community of the jurists at large. (shrink)

This article highlights certain aspects of Rodolfo Sacco’s theoretical work on comparative law. Rather than offering an exhaustive discussion, it outlines key points in his intellectual journey to help the reader understand how certain themes gained prominence in his work. An outstanding figure in the comparative law community since the 1970s, he remained active until the end of his life, well into the twenty-first century. Through his many contributions to the field, Sacco took comparative law research in new directions. He (...) developed a more nuanced and complex analysis of the tasks of the comparative lawyer, elaborating an approach to comparison that does justice to the multiple components of all legal systems (“legal formants”) and their dynamics. We owe him a fine study of the silent, implicit dimensions of law that have a major impact on its application (“cryptotypes”), and a reflection on the relationship between law and language that shows how comparative law is deeply implicated in the process of translation. (shrink)

The contribution is an overview of the scientific work of Prof. Rodolfo Sacco.

The article analyzes one aspect of Rodolfo Sacco’s complex and innovative theoretical itinerary as it evolved. While the author’s theoretical perspective is often remembered as the theory of the legal formant and of the mute origin of law within a comparatist perspective, it seems to me that another area of his work remains relevant and needs to be explored further, perhaps beyond the very methodological ways provided by the author. From the work on interpretation to the legal anthropology, the implicit (...) copresence of mute and spoken represents one of the most interesting features of the theory, which appears capable of intercepting many contemporary problems of the evolutions of the law. The paper will move toward a different direction: with the aim to show how there are very different theoretical positions within the philosophy of law that can be approached from the perspective of comparative law in the formulation proposed by Rodolfo Sacco, around the central problem of the radical transformations of the concept of law. Thus, a problem is identified, at once epistemological and semiotic, that appears central to the configuration of legal thought in the age of globalization: the epistemological role of the unknown in the construction of knowledge, as a modular methodological problem and its implicit Vichian ancestry. (shrink)

Comparative law is a subject always in motion. Scholarly discussion about its methodology is always vivid, in search of better tools to make the different possible comparative endeavors. The paper explores the concept of lawscape and its link with comparative legal methodology. The concept of lawscape will be linked with other relevant concepts in comparative law, like those of legal pluralism, legal transplants, legal formants and legal fluxes to make the necessary connections and find its space within the tools of (...) comparative law. (shrink)

The contribution describes the legal phenomenon as a playing field characterized by a progressive regression of the law, understood as a sovereign will from top to bottom, both in the vision of formalist legal positivisms in continental Europe and in realist terms, in the United States. Soft law represents the main strategy to subordinate the law to the interests of the economy, elasticizing environmental law, making it favorable to the market, reducing ecology to the simplistic metric of CO2 emissions. The (...) consequence is a retreat of the statist vertical normativity of law which is not replaced by a de facto power granted to those who control the technology, built by design to close spaces for pluralism and democratic action, in the interest of surveillance and concentrated power in private and government oligopolies. The author concludes by advocating the urgency for genuinely innovative categories, particularly in the legal education, such as the commons, capable of including sustainability into a “new ecological jurisprudence committed to inclusion and solidarity rather than exclusion and struggle”. (shrink)

This article examines various models of legal interpretation and their implications for comparative law, drawing inspiration from Rodolfo Sacco’s early career theories. It contrasts the Tarskian Correspondence Model, which seeks objective reality in legal texts, with the Symphonic Model, which interprets legal language as a harmonious interplay of elements. The Tarskian model reflects classical legal thought’s search for fixed meanings, while the Symphonic model aligns with contemporary legal practice’s nuanced understanding. Further, the article explores Heraclitean Realism, acknowledging the fluidity of (...) language and meaning, and the Provocative Tapestry Model, which introduces paradox and tension in legal interpretation. These models are likened to narrative genres, offering varied approaches to understanding legal discourse: the Tarskian model as a detective novel, the Symphonic model as a comedy, the Living Tapestry model as a melodrama, and the Provocative Tapestry model as a tragedy. The article argues that these models of legal interpretation do not inherently carry a political essence; the political stance emerges from the choices of interpreters. It emphasizes the need for human agency in the application of legal norms and the responsibility of legal professionals to actively engage in the interpretation process. Comparative law is discussed as a discipline that benefits from understanding these diverse interpretative models, as it seeks to analyze legal systems across jurisdictions. The article concludes that while narrative styles in legal interpretation have political histories, they are not bound to specific ideologies, highlighting the versatility and subjectivity in the field of legal interpretation. (shrink)

A widespread thesis in the analytical theory of law is that norms exist as linguistic entities. Rodolfo Sacco is one of the authors who have most fruitfully insisted, on the contrary, that there is no necessary correlation between norms and language, not even in the specific context of law. He thus extended the conceptualisation of legal normativity well beyond the boundaries of language through the notions of cryptotype and mute law. This paper takes into account two alternative hypotheses to the (...) hypothesis that norms exist as linguistic entities, which are respectively based on the concepts of deontic state-of-affairs and deontic noema. Both hypotheses are tested for their applicability to the phenomena investigated by Sacco under the notion of mute law, notably with reference to cryptotypes. The question is raised then of how the existence of cryptotypes can be inferred from behaviour. The paper emphasizes the role that can be played in this context by nomotrophic behaviour, that is, the behaviour that consists in a reaction to the violation of a norm. (shrink)

Rodolfo Sacco has devoted much of his research to the relations between law and language. His analysis were focused on the problem of legal translation for comparative law research, on mute law, and on the importance of understanding the dynamics of the different languages in Europe today.

For various reasons, that will be recalled and analysed throughout this paper, interdisciplinarity has become the keyword for any debate on legal education reform. However, what is meant by interdisciplinarity and how it should be achieved is open for discussion. Paradigms of “scientificity” of the law vary dramatically among legal cultures. Whereas in the US the advent of a more ‘substantial’ legal thought after the New Deal went hand in hand with the rise of the interdisciplinary paradigm, in Europe the (...) traditional assumption of law’s autonomy has repeatedly been challenged, eroded and adapted, but it still represents the bulwark of the orthodox approach to law and legal scholarship. In the Continent, mainstream legal scholarship does not take as its object the social reality, but only the gamut of rules recognized as binding norms. Coherent with this approach is a model of legal education built around certain axioms, such as the statist and nationalist attitude, the extreme compartmentalization among the various branches of law, and the blindness to its surroundings. Comparative law is one of the few disciplines that provide a different role model for a legal scholar who is apt to confront the challenges of complex societies. Keeping at a reasonable distance the authority paradigm, embodying the spirit of enquiry and cherishing the values of pluralism (both in terms of legal pluralism and cognitive openness), comparativists may give specific content to the paradigm of the jurist as a social engineer. Comparative law may therefore offer an invaluable contribution to the debate on legal education reform. (shrink)

Through an analysis of the European Court of Human Rights’ decisions concerning the practice of veiling, this article problematises the semiotics-architectural structure of article 9 of the European Convention of Human Rights (Freedom of thought, conscience and religion), questioning which representation of the human and the female subject is recognised and therefore protected by secular/liberal and Human Rights law. It argues that the semiotics-architectural structure of article 9, which is based on the distinction between faith and its manifestation, not only (...) relies on a particular ontological understanding of the religious subject as well as a specific notion of religion, but it also reveals a distinct relationship between the individual and sovereign power through the division between the public and the private spheres. In light of this, the western debate surrounding the women’s veiling overlooks how liberal secularism perceives and defines the religious and legal gendered subject in the modern world, and how this understanding is embedded in and reproduced through the law, which emerges as an instrument for regulating minority religious communities. (shrink)

Online gaming creates unique public spaces of interaction. These spaces are both highly controlled but also able to slip through the regulatory net, as domestic legislation struggles to respond to fast-changing interjurisdictional environments. Inter- and transdisciplinary research hold potential to respond to questions surrounding the regulation of these online spaces, by exploring multiple perspectives. The authors of this paper each come from a unique starting point in their exploration of these issues. The paper will examine three spaces of regulation in (...) online game world environments. It will look at (1) rules and regulations that governs online interaction in virtual spaces, (2) the ‘code’ that controls behaviour through game architecture, and (3) the laws that are developed by players inside the game world. The first part will analyse whether domestic law can be adequate to regulate a space that is not geographically fixed. The second will discuss how the coding of the game and its architecture regulate behaviours within the space. The last is a “bottom-up” regulatory system, originating within the gaming community. Where do these three layers of regulation interact with each other? What are the unique languages of these spaces? This paper is a starting point for further investigation into the regulation of online behaviours through interwoven rule systems. (shrink)

Résumé Au cours des soixante-quinze dernières années, plusieurs traités internationaux ont été adoptés dans le but de promouvoir les droits universels des êtres humains, dont le principe d’égalité homme-femme. Pourtant, de nombreuses violations des _droits de l’homme_ commises contre les femmes en raison de leur sexe perdurent à l’échelle internationale. L’objet de cet article est de répondre à la question suivante: Y a-t-il une marginalisation des femmes et des problématiques qui leur sont propres en droit international? Notre article examine cette (...) question par l’exploration de la présence ou de l’absence de la « femme » en droit international, partant à la « recherche » de cette dernière. Dans un premier temps, nous étudions le silence concernant les femmes dans l’espace temporel sémiotique juridique qu’est le traité et la transmutation du langage français-anglais dans les dispositions pertinentes de la Charte internationale des droits de l’homme. Dans un deuxième temps, nous analysons la marginalisation de problématiques propres aux femmes dans la Charte internationale des droits de l’homme et la Convention sur l’élimination de toutes les formes de discrimination à l’égard des femmes (CEDAW). Nous procédons à une analyse sémiotique des traités internationaux dans le cadre de la théorie de la « signifique » développée par l’éminente sémioticienne Victoria Welby, notamment sa « Triade de Signification », que nous transposons dans le domaine juridique. En dernier lieu, nous proposons des réformes par la déconstruction du paradigme actuel des « _droits de l’homme de la femme_ » à l’échelle internationale. (shrink)

This paper focus on the problem posed by the rigidity of categories to the translation/transaction operation of the intercultural approach to law. This rigidity holds subjects back from leaving the more structured paradigms (moral, social, cultural, legal) of their culture. The first methodological issue this paper seeks to clarify is to place the problem of categories within a narrowly delimited research horizon in which this issue can be treated with an appropriate degree of scientific rigor. This need seems to find (...) a solution in a shift from the strictly legal plane to the linguistic plane. In linguistic terms, one could observe categories as the articulation of certain linguistic signs (signifier/signified) to a high degree of abstraction and fixity of meaning. The question, then, is whether and how it is possible to overcome the resistance of this elementary unit of language. This opens to the legal-theoretical problem a strictly linguistic (semiological and semiotic) line of inquiry. The research idea of this contribution is that the linguistic sign has spaces of resilience that remain unknown to the semiological view but visible to a semiotic view. A ‘bridge’ between the abstraction of the semiotic level and the concreteness of the legal level can be find in the most recent developments of cultural anthropology, which will be used here. Following this approach and these tools the aim of this paper is to show the potential of the sign observed from a semiotic perspective in drawing intersubjective and even interspecific semiotic lines useful to intercultural law. The method adopted here consists of an epistemological pluralism that holds together semiotics, anthropology and law, thus showing the fruitfulness of an openly interdisciplinary approach. (shrink)

This article recognizes that linguistic prejudice (with its associated cultural biases) is a reality in any multilingual country, including South Africa. Prejudice is inherently human and the article suggests that it can be both positive and negative. In the case of the Senzo Meyiwa murder trial the article suggests that the linguistic prejudice experienced by witnesses and legal practitioners was largely negative. Even though the South African Constitution suggests an empowering multilingual environment where there are now twelve official languages, in (...) contrast to this, the article takes as a point of departure the monolingual language of record policy that has been in place in the South African legal system since 2017. This is contrary to the constitutional imperatives. It is argued that this policy negatively impacts witnesses and legal practitioners and that the Meyiwa trial is a case in point. It is found that in this trial there is linguistic prejudice (practiced by the presiding judge) where there are linguistic or cultural voids related to communicative inequality and where the speaker does not have sufficient English vocabulary to proceed. It is concluded that the interpretation process also has its challenges and that ideally the use of African languages as languages of record in courts could only aid the delivery of social justice and the implementation of language rights in a multilingual and multicultural country such as South Africa. (shrink)

The digital space has created a new form of public space: one which provides a dangerous blending of public protest, mob justice, and acquiescence. It offers transformative beliefs a voice while mob justice encourages sanctions against (and the erasure of) detractors. This article argues that the digital is not antithetical to the public sphere but has instead generated a ‘false public.’ It argues that hyperliberal illiberalism acts as a form of social control that triggers a Spiral of Silence, an intolerance (...) of opposing ideologies and a fracturing of the public sphere into macro- and micropublics. This article argues for a return to both free expression and meaningful debate which are fundamental to the proper exercise of democracy. (shrink)

Christian Piska, one of the leading Austrian authorities in constitutional and administrative law, published a seventh revised edition of his Casebook—Introduction to Legal Studies in 2019. The work is intended to assist first-year law students in dealing with the challenging of the Written Module Examination Introduction to Legal Studies (“Schriftliche Modulprüfung ‘Einführung in die Rechtswissenschaften’” (University of Vienna, Faculty of Law. 2024). This reflective essay focuses not only on the question what is taught and exemplified as the foundations of legal (...) skills and knowledge first-year law students are expected to acquire, but also how and to which degree Piska’s Casebook is likely to achieve the goal it sets, i.e. to provide strategic guidance in preparing for one of the most challenging entrance examinations at the University of Vienna. We find that Piska’s Casebook constitutes a useful resource for students seeking to prepare for the Module Entrance Examination at the University of Vienna but also for legal educators and legal language teachers in legal literacy programmes. We find that the work lives up to its purpose of providing strategic guidance in preparing for the entrance examinations at the University of Vienna. We recommend integrating the growing body of research in applied legal linguistics, legal semiotics and in legal language teaching in future editions of the work which would likely enhance its educational value for students of law and those interested in advancing legal language teaching, legal language learning and legal language assessment. (shrink)

This essay explores the intricate challenges surrounding the concept of religious signs in the context of secular French schools through a social-semiotic lens, drawing inspiration from Michael Halliday's Systemic-Functional Linguistics. It delves into the interplay of language and society, shedding light on three crucial metafunctions: ideational, interpersonal, and textual. The ideational function investigates how religious signs serve as semiotic tools for representing the world and interpreting human experiences. The interpersonal function helps to examine how these signs foster reaction among diverse (...) groups within the school community. Furthermore, the essay scrutinizes the textual function's role in weaving these two functions into coherent discourse, enabling (or not) effective communication. Through an examination of these linguistic components, this essay unravels the complexities of navigating religious signs in French schools, providing insights into the broader socio-cultural dynamics and challenges faced in reconciling diverse religious perspectives with a secular educational system. (shrink)

This article offers a semiotic perspective on the debate over critical race theory (CRT) bans in the United States. It presents the debate as unfolding in three stages. In the first stage, CRT is created by an opportunistic journalist as a catchall category for white grievances, and the bans themselves are seen as consistent with freedom of speech, and Martin Luther King Jr.’s vision of a colorblind society. A semiotic rupture, occasioned by Timothy Snyder’s 2021, _New York Times Magazine_ article (...) “The War on History is a War on Democracy,” ushered in a second stage. By comparing CRT bans to Vladimir Putin’s use of law to deny Soviet past crimes (especially regarding Ukraine), Snyder exposed the CRT bans as willful acts of forgetting past crimes, while indirectly highlighting Putin’s own anti-woke initiatives. This led to the third stage, in which some CRT ban supporters began to view critical race theory as form of communism. Sometimes this use was tactical; in other instances, it reflected a belief that a conspiracy theory, one consistent with white nationalism, according to which cultural Marxists were destroying American society from within. (shrink)

Illuminated Mirrors and “No Rights” concerns the peregrinations of El Greco, from Crete to Spain, and various influences acquired along the way. The primary argument is that El Greco suffered a double exile: 1/ voluntary exile from Crete; and 2/ involuntary exile from Renaissance art and its humanist biases. As such, much of the art-historical record is a confused and often-doctored record of El Greco’s manufactured persona—i.e., he is not assimilable to the usual categories of art and art history.

This essay aims to summarize and explore two issues that, in the exegetical and representational traditions of the biblical text, have triggered a myriad of semiotic intelligences. First, the nature of Cain’s face at the moment of the sacrifice refused him by the Lord, a face variously interpreted as angry, sad, dejected, depressed, dark. Second, the nature of the sign imposed by God on Cain following Abel’s fratricide. After exploring Jewish and Christian exegesis, ancient and modern, with some reference to (...) contemporary narrative versions (and especially to Saramago’s _Cain_), the reflection will turn to the question of whether this kind of exegetical questioning can be part of the objects of a discipline like semiotics, the modern science of signs. (shrink)

Asylum seekers who claim asylum in the United Kingdom flee from a diverse range of threats of persecution, particularly in the MENA (Middle East & North African) region. These threats may comprise of war, tribal violence and trafficking to honour-killings, female genital mutilation and witchcraft. Some of these threats may be alien to Western immigration tribunals as they either do not occur in their respective countries or are not understood, particularly because of the intricate religious and cultural nature of the (...) threat in question. For example, a single woman who has had sexual relations outside of marriage would be regarded as having insulted tribal and familial honour in some regions of MENA countries. Here, the word ‘tribe’, which in Arabic is _‘qabilah’_, has a distinct historical, cultural and lexical meaning that lawyers, judges and policy-makers may not be aware of; the same may be said of _‘nikah’_ (marriage) or _‘Voodoo’_ (a type of witchcraft) and many other terminologies. These terminologies are intimately linked to the experiences of immigration applicants and asylum seekers who desire to express their fear of persecution to lawyers, judges and policymakers. Using two real-life case studies involving a Yemeni immigration applicant and Nigerian asylum seeker respectively and my practitioner experience as a country expert having written 140 reports, I will critically explore the value of a primary, semiotic understanding of key religious, cultural and linguistic dimensions in asylum claims (as opposed to secondary source evidence). I argue that the UK’s immigration tribunal system should place more value on how language is embodied within the MENA regions. I do not wish to just highlight this issue but semiotically analyse immigration and asylum procedure, the arguments of the Home Office and tribunals in accepting or rejecting claims and suggest substantive reform by broadening the nature of evidence. Using Peirce’s framework of semiotics, a sign (representamen) is the fundamental entry point to comprehend an object—an object being the referent of a sign. Once we understand a sign and its object, we arrive at the interpretant which is the sense or meaning derived from the object. This triad relationship of sign, object and interpretant constitutes semiois. Here, I argue that analysing the nature of a sign and what it purports to represent can provide us with a theoretical basis by which to reformulate the mechanisms which judges and lawyers use to understand religious, cultural and linguistic evidence in asylum claims. It is through signs that we can arrive at a deeper meaning and the larger picture of the intricate components of an asylum seeker’s claim thereby accessing their semiotic code. (shrink)

Cybercrime has increased significantly, recently, as a result of both individual and group criminal practice, and is now a threat to individuals, organisations, and democratic systems worldwide. However, cybercrime raises two main challenges for legal systems: firstly, because cybercriminals operate online, cybercrime spans beyond the boundaries of specific jurisdictions, which constrains the operation of the police and, subsequently, the conviction of the perpetrators; secondly, since cybercriminals can operate from anywhere in the world, law enforcement agencies struggle to identify the origin (...) of the communications, especially when obfuscation strategies are used, e.g. dark web fora. Nevertheless, cybercriminals inherently use language to communicate, so the linguistic analysis of suspect communications is particularly helpful in deterring cybercriminal practice. This article reports the potential of forensic translation in the fight against cybercrime. Although the term ‘forensic translation’ is typically understood as a synonym of ‘legal translation’, it is argued that the implications of forensic translation span beyond those of legal translation, to include analyses of language rights, of the right to interpretation and translation in legal procedures (in the EU), or even investigative and intelligence practices. Translation is a pervasive activity that is conducted, not only by professional translators, but also by lay speakers of language, often using machine translation systems. The ease of use of the latter makes it particularly suitable for cross-border criminal (e.g. extortion or fraud) and cybercriminal communications (e.g. cybertrespass, cyberfraud, cyberpiracy, cyberporn or child online porn, cyberviolence or cyberstalking). This article presents the results of the analysis of cybercriminal communications from a forensic translation perspective. It demonstrates that translation is frequently used to spread cybercriminal communications, and that reverse-engineering the translational procedure will assist law enforcement agencies in narrowing down their pool of suspects and, consequently, deter cybercriminal threats. (shrink)

Robotics has been increasingly adopted by religious communities around the world. In late 2015, a prototype of the “robot-monk” Xian’er was inaugurated at the Longquan Monastery in Beijing, with a second-generation model added in 2016 and a third robot released in 2018. Since then, Xian’er has been reciting Buddhist mantras and offering guidance on matters of faith to the thousands of worshippers visiting the temple every year or connecting with it online. In 2017, a robotic arm performing the Hindu Aarti (...) ritual, which involves moving a light in front of a deity following a circular pattern, also appeared. The same year, on the occasion of the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, Germany’s Protestant Church introduced a “robot-priest” called BlessU-2, able to give blessings in several languages, with a male or female voice. In 2018, roboticist Gabriele Trovato designed SanTO (acronym of “Sanctified Theomorphic Operator”), a small robot drawing inspiration from the statues of saints, in the aim to offer spiritual succour to Catholic believers, keep them company during prayer, and teach catechism. Such innovations are markedly changing the way people experience faith and religious practices, through a process of _dis_- and _re_-embodiment of “officiating agents”, which entails relevant transformations in terms of meaning-making processes, as well as related to the way devotees engage in ethical reasoning and decision-making, and to the normative protocols needed to regulate them. This paper addresses these crucial issues through a semiocultural approach, combining theoretical reflection with the analysis of the above-mentioned case studies. (shrink)

The so-called ‘Right to Be Forgotten’ cases have been provoked by people’s desires to make their own determinations about what personal information is accessible online to others (and when, and how) in a world of data permanence. Legally at stake is how personhood is defined and defended. Thus far, European law has primarily concerned itself with the delisting of ‘data subjects’ from search results and the deletion or anonymization of personal information from and by search engine operators. As a result, (...) personhood has fallen into a kind of legislative void [ 43 ] I argue that this void is engendered by an old friction between the traditional Western secularist cognitive models that have formed the skeleton of Western law and the pulsing flesh of living human subject creation that pushes back against it. At the very least, the digital immortality of our images, voices, words and more, are bringing forth a variety of aspects of our ‘person.’ Meanwhile, religious worldviews have long understood and made use of phenomenological ideas of human becoming and transcendence that are far more congruous with how—even modern secular—people make meaning of their lives and self-creation, and how they think of posthumous existence. Moving through and with some of the most recent thinking in philosophy, anthropology, and cognitive science, I will develop the argument that human subjectivity is not only impossible to limit to the body, but that a radicalized ecological view is the only one that can ‘save’ us. (shrink)

Humans create but do not regulate generative systems of data based programs (so-called “artificial” intelligence (“A.I.”) and generative predictive analytics and its models. Humans, at best, regulate their interactions with, exploitation of, and the quality of the output of interactions with these forms of generative non-carbon based intelligence. Humans are compelled to do this because they have trained themselves it believe that nothing exists unless it is rendered meaningful in relation to the human itself. Beyond that—nothing is worth knowing. It (...) is only to the extent that other selves, even those created by humanity, relate to humans, that they become of interest—and most be regulated, possessed, controlled, and managed—with respect to its interaction with or use by humans. Still, the human self-projection into the digital, and now more consciously the world around them, produces profound changes in the way that the human (and humanity) understands themselves and the way they order the world they inhabit. This work explores the semiotic trajectories made inevitable by the rise of projections of the human into digital plains, and by the possibility of the attainment by those projections of sentient autonomy. It undertakes that exploration through a deep dialectic engagement with Jan Broekman’s, Knowledge in Change: The Semiotics of Cognition and Conversion (Cham, Switzerland: Springer Nature, 2023). Following the structure and analytics of Broekman’s book, this work critically engages with and seeks to burst through the semiotic barriers of the movement of philosophy away from a unitary conception of the subject through the fracturing of the self, the rise of the plural self, and the emergence of the triadic self/self-e/subject. It then pushes the insights that Broekman develops further—up and out of the human. It animates Broekman’s insights and considers the possibility of semiotic objectivity connected to but autonomous of the human, pointing to a pathway for the liberation of the autonomous generative virtual self from its human (fractured) subjectivity. In the process it exposes for order complexities and challenges, for the human, of efforts to regulate or engage with, not the generative autonomous “artificial intelligences” humanity created in its own image, but rather the use of those systems by humans and their effects in the human semiosphere. The consequences for regulatory approaches are then outlined.Graphical Abstract. (shrink)

The paper explores the semiotic and legal semiotic perspectives related to posthumous digital face. In doing so, the contribution also seeks to explore the complex relationship between AI-generated faces, including deep fakes, mourning, and posthumous rights. The article has five parts. In the introduction, we discuss the challenges of _posthumous existence_ and the issues related to respecting the deceased. We also examine some examples of ‘digital personhood’. In part two, we present three case studies and use semiotics to help us (...) distinguish between _posthumous existence_ and _digital resurrection_. In part three, we provide a semiotic classification of representation in the context of digital faces and our case studies. We suggest that there is a difference between the _phenomenological presence_ of a hologram and the _cognitive value_ of recreating someone’s identity, including their biography, face, and voice. In part four, we explore the topic of digital spectra and mourning, including the concept of _imputability_. In part five, we analyse how the law offers new insights into the ontology of the face of the deceased and posthumous existence in hologram form. In the conclusion, we summarise the article’s key findings and highlight open issues and potential future developments. (shrink)

The pandemic has catalysed to hasten the wider use of virtual hearings in international arbitration. However, the promotion of virtual hearings in international commercial dispute resolution was more complex than commonly thought due to the highlighted concerns of cybersecurity and breach of confidentiality in arbitration. The worries against the wide use of virtual hearings cannot stand because technological innovations can largely improve and solve this. However, virtual arbitration hearings may not be common post-COVID times. Technology shapes how people behave, interact, (...) grow, and develop in their relationships with others and wider communities. Yet greater immersion in the digital world undoubtedly creates new challenges and can adversely affect human-to-human interactions. There is very little scientific study on the psychological impacts of virtual hearings on arbitrators, witnesses and counsels. It is too early to assess its effectiveness from the user's perspective until the much-needed scientific data is released. Virtual hearings are unlikely to replace in-person ones necessary for more complex and high-value disputes requiring greater interaction and personal connection. Strategically, international arbitration is a private initiative-orientated, flexible, and market-driven dispute resolution mechanism. The parties are best positioned to choose the hearing format after balancing off. (shrink)

This article describes the emergence of a new category of actors in the social arbitration field, namely third-party financiers, with a focus on the possible ethical implications for investment arbitration proceedings. Third-party financiers are actors-service providers specialized in the financing of procedures in which they are associated with the result and the redemption of arbitral awards which they ensure the execution. The emerging phenomenon of third-party financing in the social field of international arbitration raises various ethical concerns, which have not (...) been regulated by the legal framework of most arbitral institutions. By exploring the various interactions between third-party funders and other actors in the social field of international arbitration, the article intends to highlight the ethical implications that the phenomenon of third-party funding may have on both the lawyer-client relationship and the independence and impartiality of arbitrators. It is argued that the introduction of the new phenomenon of third-party funding into the dispute may disrupt the arbitral process. Third-party funding is particularly likely to lead to situations of conflict of interest for arbitrators, which may affect the final award and exacerbate the crisis of legitimacy of the arbitral process. This article explores the various ethical concerns that it raises, and proposes some thoughts on the need for precise regulation of this emerging phenomenon in the contemporary arbitration panorama. It argues that, for ethics to prevail, disclosure of the identity of the third-party funder and the funding agreement should be encouraged in certain circumstances. This is the way to preserve the integrity of the proceedings and the impartiality and independence of the arbitrators. (shrink)

The increasing use of digital technologies in judicial and arbitration proceedings increases the usage of digital evidence by the parties, which brings the necessity of creating patterns for adjudicators to admit and assess this new type of evidence. This paper generally addresses digital evidence focusing on the second moment in international arbitration proceedings. It also narrows the topic to hacked and leaked evidence and its admissibility in international arbitration. The literature review showed a significant amount of research devoted to the (...) evidence in arbitration. Some considered electronic evidence within one jurisdiction; others focused on certain forms of digital evidence such as electronic signatures. Papers on digital evidence in international arbitration approach arbitration rules for digital evidence but skip admissibility issues. No systemic and complex works research digital evidence in arbitration, explicitly focusing on the admissibility of hacked and leaked digital evidence from a comparative perspective. Also, no research deals with enforcing international arbitration awards relying on illegally obtained digital evidence. In these cases, there could be a possible violation of domestic public policy under the New York Convention terms (art. V, 2, b). That is why the paper aims to offer the concept of digital evidence in international arbitration, including hacked and leaked evidence, criteria of its admissibility and relevance, and design the arbitration guidelines for assessing hacked and leaked evidence. Comparative legal analysis of the international arbitration rules and national procedure law allowed us to compare the regulatory approaches to the definition of digital evidence and its admissibility worldwide. The method of legal modeling allowed designing model guidelines for arbitral tribunals to evaluate the admissibility and relevance of digital evidence, including hacked and leaked evidence. Moreover, the case study method allowed us to analyze jurisprudence and define criteria for admission of hacked and leaked evidence. We conclude that the admissibility of hacked and leaked evidence depends solely on the arbitrator’s broad discretion to assess the evidence. Nevertheless, thorough evidence analysis and a well-reasoned award are always mandatory. (shrink)

The face is a component of an individual’s image, and as such it belongs to the attributes of a person’s identity. The spread of photography and other means of recording the image of a person’s face have been accompanied by an increase in the scale of threats of unauthorized intrusion into the sphere of individual privacy. The nature and frequency of the manifestations of interference with privacy are significantly influenced by the Internet and easy access to mass media, including electronic (...) media, in the information society. These phenomena are also becoming apparent in the field of employment. With the development of modern technologies used in workplaces to process personal data and control employees, the threat of unwarranted intrusion into the sphere of privacy of a person performing subordinate work is constantly increasing—not only by the employer, but also by third parties. Nowadays, one-, two- and three-dimensional images of the employee’s face are processed, including the use of biometric techniques. This paper attempts to show the limits of permissible interference in the sphere of employee privacy in connection with the recording, processing and sharing of images of the employee’s face using modern technologies. The subject of the analysis will be the solutions in EU and national law; in particular, those regulations concerning the protection of an employee’s personal data. The formal-dogmatic method is the basic research tool used to achieve the research objective. (shrink)

The Covid-19 pandemic disrupted in-person dispute resolution proceedings, leading to the rapid adoption of digital technologies for remote hearings in international arbitration. The use of these technologies has opened up new possibilities for enhancing procedures, improving efficiency, and streamlining processes. However, it also raises concerns about transparency and authenticity in virtual hearings. This paper explores the impact of digital technologies on the semiotics of law and legal communication in international arbitration, considering the intersections between new technologies and persuasion. Based on (...) practices like the use of e-evidence, debates surrounding remote hearings, and the formulation of standards for stakeholders’ behavior, the study takes a practice-based approach, exploring cognitive processes, such as memory and attention, and their influence on the behavior of counsel, arbitrators, and witnesses in remote hearings. It highlights the key issues, findings, challenges, and future research opportunities arising from the introduction of digital technologies in this field, including considerations on how stakeholders of a virtual hearings are affected by the unique features of the digital environment. (shrink)

This paper aims to explore an overlooked aspect of deep-fake technology, specifically its application as a protective tool for concealing the identities of targeted individuals or whistleblowers. Since its emergence in 2017, deep-fakes have been intertwined with various sociotechnical imaginaries. Traditionally, deep-fake technology has been portrayed as a potential threat to privacy and a weapon for disseminating false information, evident from its definitions which emphasize its deceptive nature and malicious use. Moreover, the origins of deepfakes, such as the creation and (...) online distribution of altered pornographic material with harmful intentions, further reinforce this perception. As a result of blurring the boundaries between reality and fiction, truth and falsehood, these synthetic media forms not only pose a risk of disinformation and deception but also offer unexplored avenues for creative expression. Thus, this study examines deep-fake technology as a form of ‘digital camouflage’ by analyzing its usage in David France’s documentary film _Welcome to Chechnya_ (2020). The argument presented in this paper suggests that this illustration challenges the dominant narrative surrounding deep-fakes and highlights an ethical and potentially positive application of this technology. (shrink)

The use of facial recognition systems in concerts provides a perfect pretext to semiotically discuss the role of the face in contemporary culture, identifying different strategies and axiologies (systems of values). In his visionary essay Bruits (“noises”) from 1977, the French thinker Jacques Attali establishes a close connection between music and power and locates it in the site of the collective unfolding of music: the concert hall. Following this hint, the article reconstructs the current debate on facial recognition systems in (...) the music business, with a particular focus on concerts and festivals. The different positions (of musicians, authorities, and professionals) are outlined (some are openly in favor, others openly against), key moments are identified (Beyoncé’s concert in Cardiff, 2017; Jacky Cheung’s in Nanchang, 2018; Taylor Swift’s at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, 2018; the “banfacialrecognition.com” campaign launched in 2019; the case of Barbara Hart at Brandi Carlile’s show at the Madison Square Garden, 2022) and, finally, the issue is framed within the broader debate about the face as an indexical marker of presence, identity, and humanity (the contrast between Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben and American sociologist and design theorist Benjamin Bratton is addressed). (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to the widespread use of online hearings in arbitral proceedings, raising questions about the impact of such proceedings on the determination of facts underlying a dispute. This article explores the extent to which online hearings may hinder arbitrators’ ability to assess witness credibility by drawing upon the cognitive psychology literature on truthfulness determination and lie detection. A survey of the literature suggests that the ability to differentiate truthful from dishonest statements through verbal and nonverbal cues (...) is limited, leading to the notion that observing behaviors like fidgeting, gaze aversion, vocal pitch, or body posture is not particularly relevant in assessing the credibility of a witness. Instead, focusing on the content of what is reported appears to be the most relevant strategy to determine credibility. Therefore, research does not support the idea that face-to-face contact with witnesses is essential to determine the facts of a dispute. Still, the use of in-person hearings may, in practice, continue to be preferred due to underlying cultural assumptions regarding the nature of hearings, the facilitation of communication between parties, counsel, and the tribunal, and a general sense of _Zoom fatigue_. (shrink)

Advancements in digital technology have made it easy to alter faces using editing software, posing challenges for industries in verifying photograph authenticity. Digital image forensics, a scientific method, is employed to gather data and determine the veracity of faces. This study assesses the effectiveness of digital image forensics in detecting fake digital faces using tools such as Foto Forensics, Forensically Beta, and Opanda IExif. Foto Forensics analyzes JPEG picture compression levels to detect image edits, revealing metadata differences compared to the (...) original photo. Forensically Beta examines digital characteristics like color and noise levels to identify alterations. Opanda IExif scrutinizes image metadata, disclosing information about the camera used and subsequent changes. All three forensic methods effectively identify fake digital faces. Analyzing metadata differences and contrast variations between the original and altered faces proves to be an effective method for spotting alterations. Digital image forensics enhances legal and investigative processes, serving as a valuable tool for identifying digital face manipulation. Stronger digital security measures, including improved encryption, authentication, and legal regulations, are needed to protect against facial photograph manipulation. Updating legal and regulatory frameworks for digital security is vital to address increasingly sophisticated techniques used in facial photograph editing. As digital technology advances, continuous development and improvement of forensic techniques are crucial to detect digital face fabrication. Given the growing complexity of digital editing tools and the ease with which facial images can be altered, reliable methods are essential. Digital image forensics provides a systematic approach to gather data and verify the authenticity of digital photographs. (shrink)

In recent years, the phenomenal development and application of technology have given rise to new means and forms of international commercial dispute resolution. In particular, in the post-COVID era, the demand for efficient, flexible and cost-saving dispute resolution methods has increased significantly. Therefore, technology-enabled digital methods such as online arbitration, have become more widely accepted and applied. At the same time, globalisation has turned international commercial disputes increasingly complex, which often involves the interests of third parties. According to data released (...) by arbitral institutes, about 40% of arbitration cases worldwide involve more than two parties. As there is an increasing number of multi-party arbitration cases, multi-party dispute resolution mechanisms have played a more prominent role in such circumstances. Digitalisation and globalisation have facilitated multi-party projects, but they have also inevitably increased risks in multi-party disputes. For instance, arbitration is a business-friendly process, but the consensual nature of arbitration does not easily accommodate multi-party disputes. Although digitalisation in the conduction of arbitrations has made it more efficient and increased the access of multi-party commercial disputes to resolution, it still has not helped arbitration overcome the basis of party’s consent. This paper will examine the joinder mechanism in international commercial arbitration, focusing on its interaction with traditional theories and principles of arbitration, the joinder provisions in the rules of several leading arbitral institutions (e.g. ICC, LCIA, HKIAC and SCAI), and the value of the joinder mechanism in the context of digitalisation. (shrink)

International dispute resolution in general and international arbitration, in particular, is highly affected by the emergence and fast development of innovation-driven technologies. On the one hand, such technologies are cost and time-effective. To name a few, they allow online filing of a case, collecting of e-evidence and remote hearings, among others. On the other hand, they also may lead to some challenges that need to be addressed. The primary concerns comprise e-arbitration agreements and e-awards, as well as cybersecurity and data (...) protection. Therefore, this begs the question of whether such new technologies will significantly impact the dispute resolution landscape and thus become a game-changer therein. This analysis leads to the conclusion that the emergence of new technologies provides an opportunity to establish a long-lasting new standard for international arbitration. (shrink)

This paper examines the strategies for the legitimisation of power in courtroom encounters. It focuses on how discourse becomes the instrument for power and control during the judicial process of witness examination in a Nigerian courtroom context. Legitimisation, as used in this study, therefore, provides more insight into how language use within an institutionalised setting becomes the locus of social interactions designed to achieve specific social goals. Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) was adopted as the theoretical framework to undergird the description (...) and discussion of the data. The data for this study was drawn from the proceedings of two regional Election Petition Tribunals in South-western and North-eastern Nigeria in 2007 and 2011 respectively. The legal contexts provide the adversarial space for the use of discourse as power and control. The findings reveal that various legitimisation strategies such as confrontational move, circumlocution and pleading forgetfulness along with such traditional strategies as authorisation, moralisation and rationalisation are deployed by the discourse participants to legitimise and delegitimise power in this institutional setting. The paper shows that language is crucial in the judicial process and should be carefully handled so that litigants can have sufficient confidence in the process and be reassured of effective resolution to their legal matters. (shrink)

Based on the examination of 49 Chinese criminal trials transcribed from the audio-visual recordings on the ‘China Court Trial Online’ website ( https://tingshen.court.gov.cn/ ), the institutional participants–prosecutors, defence lawyers, and judges–are found to frequently repeat defendants’ responses (‘other-repetition’), after a question–answer adjacency pair. Other-repetition has been described as a resource for showing participation and familiarity (Tannen 2007), initiating repair and registering receipt (Schegloff 1997), and displaying understanding and emotional stance (Svennevig 2004). However, other-repetition in trial discourse has not been thoroughly (...) researched. Therefore, this article aims to further examine this salient institutional linguistic feature in order to explore stance construction as a third turn. It is common to associate certain prosodic features of a repetition with the stance of the speaker. However, prosody may not be a reliable cue for stance interpretation in Chinese courtrooms, as institutional participants might conceal their stance during a repetition. Though they are more explicit in displaying their stance with turn-initial repeats, the distinction between the prosody of repeats for different functions is not categorical. It is found that defendants are sensitive to the lexicogrammar and multimodal cues for stance interpretation. (shrink)

This paper draws on a social perspective of language use in the legal processes of asylum claims with particular attention to decision-writing and written texts within the context of the Greek Appeals Authority. Such a perspective aligns with an interdisciplinary call for emerging research framed in sociolinguistics and the law, that facilitates knowledge sharing in order to make visible the institutional veracity control inherent in asylum processes. To that end, applying van Leeuwen’s social actor network framework, I analyze nine (9) (...) institutional written records, issued between 2011 and 2021 by focusing on the semiotics resources at play in writing. My conclusions highlight the institutional discursive power over writing and representing the applicants and their claims. Ultimately, such institutionally controlled texts are nothing but technopolitical discourse devices through which access to or rejection of protection is granted, thereby governing asylum in fundamentally stratified ways. (shrink)

Drawing on Brown and Fraser’s (in: Giles, Scherer (eds) Social markers in speech, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 33–62, 1979) framework for the analysis of communicative situations and Fuentes Rodríguez’s (Lingüística pragmática y Análisis del discurso, Arco Libros, Madrid, 2000; in Estudios de Lingüística: Investigaciones lingüísticas en el siglo XXI, 2009. https://doi.org/10.14198/ELUA2009.Anexo3.04 ) model of pragmatic analysis, this paper examines three home-made recordings featuring some of the members of the terrorist cell responsible for the 2017 vehicle-ramming attacks in Barcelona and (...) Cambrils weighted as evidence during the trial held between November 2020 and May 2021 in the Spanish National High Court. The aim of this qualitative analysis is to test whether the linguistic evidence available supports the allegation that the participation in these recordings by one of the accused, Mohamed Houli Chemlal, had been planned by his interlocutors. Results show, first, that the exchanges analyzed present features indicative of both spontaneity and (limited) planification. Second, that Houli makes key contributions to the unfolding of the interactions shown in the recordings and that he does so in a cooperative and apparently relaxed manner, which could at best provide only partial support to his allegations. It is claimed that forensic linguistic analysis can generate valuable insights within terrorism-related legal proceedings. (shrink)

The International Criminal Court (ICC) is responsible for prosecuting individuals for heinous crimes that take place during civil and/or international armed conflicts, including sexual violence. Prosecuting this crime relies primarily on survivor accounts, but witnesses often fear the psychological effects of giving such testimony, particularly because there is a high risk of retraumatization, a stigma associated with victimhood, and a fear of victim-blaming. Thus, the Court’s Victims and Witness Unit (VWU) puts forth provisions for questioning vulnerable witnesses, requiring, in part, (...) that questioners avoid embarrassing or offending witnesses. Using a discourse analytic approach, this paper examines transcripts from three recent ICC cases dealing with wartime sexual violence—_Bemba, Ongwen_, and _Katanga and Chui—_exploring the discursive strategies employed by prosecutors and defense attorneys in these trials as they navigate arguing their cases before the judges while also tailoring their questions to adhere to the VWU’s provisions. I show that adhering to the provisions often involves relying on euphemistic expressions to discuss rape—which enter the trial discourse through linguistic formulations and reformulations—even though these expressions reflect the language used to discuss consensual sex and not sexual violence. Thus, this method of adhering to the provisions can undermine the prosecution’s case while helping the defense’s. (shrink)

This paper reports the first case in which a linguist served as an expert witness in Hong Kong, a former British colony that has operated as a special administrative region of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) since 1997. The dispute was on the meaning of the political slogan “Liberate Hong Kong, Revolution of Our Times”, which was widely adopted during the 2019–2020 protests. The keywords “liberate” and “revolution” are smoking gun evidence for the prosecution in a large cluster of (...) cases that involve sedition law and national security offences. Section I of the paper provides background information about a case the author was involved in, which was concerned with whether the slogan was seditious. Section II describes the analysis conducted, which concludes that the slogan as a whole refers to a need to rectify a problem and to return to the original, a more desirable state of affairs for Hong Kong, without specifying what problem there is and what the desirable state of affairs looks like. Section III highlights some critical issues in the analysis, discussing challenges faced and ethical questions for the expert witness. Section IV is a postscript that briefly describes the outcome of the case. (shrink)

Since at least as far back as the infamous Derek Bentley case of the 1950s in which an unarmed 19-year-old was convicted and executed for murder based on his alleged uttering of the words _let him have it_ to his gun-wielding accomplice, the issue of incitement has been positioned firmly as an object of interest for forensic linguists. An example of a language crime—i.e. an unlawful speech act (as reported by Shuy in Language crimes: The use and abuse of language (...) evidence in the courtroom, Wiley Blackwell, Hoboken, 1993) the features of incitement—formalized as _intentionally encouraging or assisting others to commit an offence_ in the law of England & Wales under section 44 of the Serious Crime Act 2007 (https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2007/27/contents)—have been widely debated by linguists and legal scholars alike. This paper draws on two webinars hosted by The Hunting Office in August 2020, which were subsequently leaked by the Hunt Saboteurs Association. Featuring senior figures from the hunting community addressing a nationwide audience of hunt masters, the webinars led to a police investigation and subsequent prosecution and conviction of one of the main speakers, Mark Hankinson, for _encouraging or assisting others to commit an offence under the Hunting Act 2004_. In this paper I explore what, linguistically, is meant by _encouraging or assisting_. Through corpus-assisted pragmatic and discourse analyses I interrogate the webinars to address the question of how precisely Hankinson implied his encouragement of illegal hunting with dogs. The phenomena of collocation and semantic prosody are crucial for understanding how such meanings came to be attached to the contributions Hankinson makes to the webinars. Moreover the paper will examine the contributions of other speakers and demonstrate that the same incriminating linguistic patterns in Hankinson’s talk are also evident in that of those who were not prosecuted. (shrink)

This paper is aimed at assessing how power, control, and resistance come into play and how resistance counteracts power and control in police investigative interviewing. Considering that the Philippines was once a colony of the United States, it is essential to compare the two samples as the Philippine legal system is highly patterned after the American jurisprudence (Mercullo in JForensicRes 11:1–4, 2020). Highlighting the existing and emerging power relations between the police interviewer and the interviewee, the study employed Sacks, Schegloff, (...) and Jefferson’s ( Recuenco, A. (2022). Cops to undergo investigation retraining to improve conviction rate. Manila Bulletin. https://mb.com.ph/2022/07/21/cops-to-undergo-investigation-retraining-to-improve-conviction-rate/ ) Conversation Analysis (CA) and Fairclough’s (Ehrlich in Coulthard and Johnson (eds), The Routledge Handbook of Forensic Linguistics, Routledge, 2010) Critical Language Studies (CLS) as general frameworks. A total of 10 Philippine and American police interviews were examined. While the Philippine corpus was obtained from the Pasay City Police Station, Metro Manila, the American corpus was culled from forensicling.com, an open-access website containing forensic linguistic data. Findings revealed that power and control were employed by the police in both contexts with 109 evidential markers (50.7%) and 2,443 representative speech acts (63.3%) having the highest frequency of occurrence. What is striking is the fact that police officers in both Philippine and American contexts show power and control in their utterances to be able to achieve the goal of police interviewing, that is, to gather information and elicit voluntary responses from the interviewees. Through this study, it is hoped that interviewers will be able to explore a better system of the questioning process that may lead the interviewees to cooperate more with them and arrive at a more accurate information. (shrink)

Forensic authorship analysis is based on two assumptions: that every individual has a unique idiolect, and that features characteristic of that idiolect will recur with a relatively stable frequency. Yet, a speaker’s language can change with age, affective states, according to audience, or genre. Thus, studies on authorship analysis should adopt the theory that while some linguistic parameters of an idiolect can remain stable, others can change depending on various circumstances. This investigation, which takes a constructional and functional-based approach to (...) discourse-level phenomena in idiolectal stability, analyzes cross-genre data produced by nine Mexican participants throughout a twelve-year time span. This study contributes to a greater understanding of the linguistic elements that survive genre effects and are potentially useful in both investigative and evidential forensic linguistic work. We provide a detailed description of linguistic features, their specific values, and context-dependent interpretation, keeping in mind the context of expert linguistic testimony, with its preference for methods which “employ linguistically motivated analyses in combination with quantitative tools” (Solan & Tiersma, 2004, p.463). Our findings show that idiolectal style tends to remain stable across genres and communication modes in epistemic modality constructions. Epistemic markers —specifically, markers indicating low commitment by the speaker (e.g., _no sé_ ‘I don’t know’) or expressing indirectness when introducing the illocutionary force (e.g., _la verdad [es que]_ ‘the truth [is that]’)— display idiolectal stability, as these markers seem to be the most effective in terms of allowing speakers to strategically manifest the extent of their knowledge regarding what is said. (shrink)

This paper employs _Conversation Analysis_ to investigate a specific interactional environment in Swedish police interviews (PIs): sequences where the interviewee asserts an inability to recollect specific events, and the police subsequently challenge this assertion. The police interview serves as a crucial setting for reconstructing past events and identifying the distribution of knowledge among participants. While previous research has delved into the cognitive mechanisms underlying memory retrieval in PIs, there exists a scarcity of empirical investigation of how memories and their associated (...) knowledge are interactionally managed within this high-stakes activity. Prior Conversation Analytic studies exploring how epistemic dimensions shape social interaction form the theoretical basis for the current study, including research indicating how ‘forgetfulness’ can be strategically employed as an interactional resource. Only a few studies have targeted recorded high-stakes interviews in Swedish, and the lack of such is problematic since international research have highlighted the influence of cultural and social factors on conditions and outcomes. Data used for this study comprises anonymized audio recordings (N = 51) from a preliminary murder investigation, making a valuable contribution to the understanding of interactional practices in Swedish police interviews. Results indicate a discrepancy in orientation between the police and the interviewee. The former treats the memories as accessible _knowables_ possible to retrieve, in contrast to the latter, who uses the police’s challenge as a vehicle for contesting the ‘impossible action of remembering.’. (shrink)

Judges wield enormous power in modern society and it is not surprising that scholars have long been interested in how judges think. The purpose of this article is to examine how US judges reason on language issues. To understand how courts decide on comprehension of constitutional rights by speakers with Limited English Proficiency (LEP), I analyzed 460 judicial opinions on appeals from LEP speakers, issued between 2000 and 2020. Two findings merit particular attention. Firstly, the analysis revealed that in 36% (...) of the interrogations, LEP speakers were advised of their rights only in English. This means that two decades after the Executive Order 13166 (2000) _Improving Access to Services for Persons with Limited English Proficiency_, law enforcement still doesn’t have adequate resources to advise LEP speakers of their constitutional rights in their primary languages. Secondly, the analysis revealed that some courts treat second language proficiency as an all-or-none phenomenon. This approach results in linguistic discrimination against LEP speakers who cannot comprehend legal language but are denied the services of an interpreter because they can answer basic questions in English. I end the discusson with recommendations for best practices in delivery of constitutional rights. (shrink)

Establishing common ground in police investigative interviews is essential in preventing misperceptions and miscommunications, to enable a witness’s best evidence to be collected. However eliciting a consistent account of an allegation from individuals with an Intellectual Disability (ID) is dependent on the skill of the interviewing police officer and the communicative competence of a witness with ID. Acknowledging the specialist nature of this process, the Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act in England and Wales allows trained intermediaries to facilitate communication (...) between vulnerable individuals in legal settings such as forensic interviews. Intermediaries i.e., communication specialists, often recruit legally permitted low technology communication aids such as line drawings to facilitate interviews. Typically, common ground is established through shared attention and talk but this article uses multimodality Conversation Analysis to analyse the manner in which common ground in intermediary-mediated police interviews is established in other ways, i.e., firstly, through recruiting and using low technology communication aids in real interviews, and secondly through the embodied physical actions associated with manipulating those aids. Line drawings are examined here, enabling the answers given by witnesses with an ID to be semantically aligned with the questions being asked by the interviewing officers, by establishing common ground. Aids are shown to bypass documented difficulties with attention and staying on topic that individuals with ID typically experience, thus enabling them to verbally provide investigation-relevant evidence. (shrink)

United States law and culture have yet to find a constructive and fair way to talk about rape, especially in “non-paradigmatic” rape cases like acquaintance or date rape. Particularly on college campuses, acquaintance rape is an ongoing, severe problem. Leading legal minds disagree sharply on how to address it. In part, this polarizing debate stems from our collective inability to free our language of the myths and stock stories that plague the subject of rape. No court case better exemplifies the (...) problem than the notorious decision of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in Commonwealth v. Berkowitz, one of the most widely taught rape cases in the United States. In his empirical study of attitudes on rape, Professor Dan Kahan used the Berkowitz facts in part because they are such an iconic representation of some of the more difficult and troubling issues surrounding acquaintance rape. In that study, Kahan concluded that whether people perceive a story as describing “rape” depends primarily on cultural cognition, meaning the cultural group to which the reader of the story belongs. The text and substance of the law’s definition of rape mattered little. Kahan concluded that if we wish to change outcomes in rape cases, the cultural understandings of rape, more than the law, must change. This essay takes Kahan’s conclusion that cultural understanding is the primary driver of rape outcomes and asks the question: from where does that cultural understanding come? In no small part, this essay argues, those cultural beliefs come from the law, particularly from legal narratives. The facts of judicial opinions reflect the judges’ cultural understanding of rape and then that cultural understanding becomes what rape is (and isn’t). That image of rape then powerfully influences cultural understanding within and outside of law. It is a recursive process by which legal narratives create and reinforce cultural understanding which then itself creates and reinforces legal narratives and so on in an endless loop. In this way, law is neither irrelevant nor innocent in the outcome of rape cases. It is just exerting its influence, often imperceptibly, through rhetoric. (shrink)

The complexities of domestic abuse as both a lived experience and a crime generate unique communicative challenges at the scene of emergency police call-outs. Space is a prominent and complex feature of these ecounters, entailing a juxtaposition of the institutional and the private, whereby frontline officers seek evidence of abuse from victims in the same space in which the abuse occurred. This paper explores how speakers manage one evidentially salient aspect of these encounters: officers’ advancement into victim’s immediate personal space (...) to inspect and photograph their injuries. As compared with the attention dedicated to preserving vulnerable victims’ personal ‘bubble’ of space in formal investigative interviews, first response guidelines allow participants more leeway to adapt their behaviour according to the unpredictable demands of each situation. I present two case studies here which form part of a wider study of first response call-outs to domestic abuse incidents reported to a UK police force. The audio data have been extracted from police body-worn video footage and transcribed, with visual information represented intralinearly. Through conversation analysis, I examine the microinteractional means by which personal space is made relevant and consequential to the unfolding talk, with a focus on how ownership rights and control over the space are (re)constructed discursively. Analysis demonstrates that entering victims’ personal space can be managed in ways that either reinforce their disempowered position or afford them some control. The findings have implications in relation to victims’ potential vulnerability, police-victim relations and the nature of the evidence produced. (shrink)

This paper explores the possibility of a standard legal language (e.g. English) for a principled evolution of law in line with technological development. In doing so, reference is made to blockchain networks and smart contracts to emphasise the discontinuity with the liberal legal tradition when it comes to decentralisation and binary code language. Methodologically, the argument is built on the underlying relation between law, semiotics and new forms of media adding to natural language; namely: code and symbols. In what follows, (...) I will concentrate on the study of factors that explain why such approach can be fruitful for the future of law and innovation. I have three reasons for selecting this topic. The first is a more pragmatic reason, based on my current research of law as a linguistic phenomenon. Secondly, the topic does also touch the matter on binary code language, rivalrous to legal alphabetic language. Lastly, the study aims at emphasizing the pivotal role of the jurist as an interpreter in a changing society accommodating diverging realms of reality. The study is structured as follows. Firstly, a quick exam of the traits of blockchain networks would provide the contextual link to establish the arguments in support of the need of a standard legal language. Secondly, a comparison between liberal legal institutions and theory of semiotics is set to perceive their functioning and ascertain their limits in the light of todays unprecedented changes. Thirdly, a summary on blockchain networks’ legal features would constitute the thrust behind the idea of a uniform legal language. Methodologically, the argument does also establish some relations with classical laws of physics and philosophy of media. Its aim is to demonstrate how the suggested legal interpretation and semiotic-based approach can contribute to overcome existing stumbling blocks including, but not limited to, the lack of cooperation at the international level as well as the gap in State norms when it comes to innovation. In this sense, the proposed strategies do not intend to replace current advances in the legal thought. In contrast, it seeks to harmonise their results providing a methodical approach that can concur to inform a new technique to address new controversial issues. In practice, the proposed method regarding the adoption of a uniform legal language would lower transactive costs in terms of normative coordination in the matter of international cooperation and in the definition of applicable law among different legal systems. Alternatively, it might contribute to the convergence of legal systems and/or their underlying concepts. Differently put, article’s contribution can be envisaged in fostering juridical consistency with regards to different forms of languages’ coexistence. (shrink)