Today, our focus is not on what but who: we’re delighted to spotlight some of the newest members of the network. This post introduces recent advocacy, academic and community-building efforts from a leading barrister, a linguistics professor and a leading forensic linguist, a legal academic, a postdoctoral researcher, three postgraduate research students and our new LLIRN Intern.

Eleanor Kettle at the Cape of Good Hope after the 2025 IAFLL conference in Cape Town (Image credit: Eleanor Kettle)

And to keep sharing news from researchers, professionals, policy-makers and students concerned with problems arising when language issues and legal issues meet, we also have a new website to announce: www.lawandlanguage.org! We’re continuing to add to it. It houses this and other blogs from LLIRN members; teaching and research resources; and profiles of people and projects. Come visit!

Professor Gratien G. Atindogbé

Gratien G. Atindogbé, a Professor of African Languages and Linguistics at the University of Buea, Cameroon, has been a significant figure in the field since 1997. His academic journey includes a doctorate in African linguistics from the University of Bayreuth, Germany, in 1996. His research interests are diverse, covering descriptive linguistics, documentation of endangered languages, historical linguistics, tonology, Cameroonian Pidgin English, intercultural communication, forensic linguistics, and the sociolinguistics of French. Notably, he is a key member of the Pluridisciplinary Advances in African Multilingualism project, funded by the National Science Foundation in the US. His dedication to Higher Education management is evident, and he has authored nearly fifty publications, including articles, collective chapters, and scientific books.

Recent publications

Atindogbe, Gratien G. (2022). Digital Humanities for Sustainable Learning: Lessons from Documentary Linguistics. OASIS Commonwealth of Learning’s (COL) Open Access Repository. DOI https://doi.org/10.56059/pcf10.5128
Atindogbé, Gratien G. and Dissake, Koumassol Endurence M. (2019). Forensic Linguistics as a tool for the development of Cameroon national languages. African Study Monographs 40(1): 23- 44. https://doi.org/10.14989/243208
Dissake, Koumassol Endurence M. and Atindogbé, Gratien G. (2020). Analyzing Court Discourse in a Multilingual Setting: The Case of the Buea Court of First Instance. In Pier Paolo Di Carlo and Jeff Good (Eds.), African Multilingualisms. Lanham: Lexington Books.

Dr Edward Clay

Dr Edward Clay is currently a Research Fellow working in the Law School at the University of Birmingham, UK. His research interests focus on empirical and interdisciplinary approaches to law and language, examining the intersection between translation, law, terminology and linguistics. His research examines the effects of translation on terminology in legal discourse, and legal translation as a language contact scenario.

His PhD (2024) was an interdisciplinary project at the interface of law and language, translation, migration studies and linguistics, leading to a thesis entitled ‘Translation-induced language change in the field of migration: a multilingual corpus analysis of EU legal texts and press articles.’ This project examines the potential for migration terminology to emerge across different languages through translation in an institutional setting before becoming more widely established in general discourse. He is currently working on a research project funded by the Leverhulme Trust entitled ‘The Impact of Brexit: A Linguistic Perspective’ to investigate the changes in EU legal language since the UK’s withdrawal from the EU and the implications of any changes for the policy and lawmaking environment of the EU and the UK.

Recent publications

Clay, E (2024), Language contact within an institutional ecosystem: The impact of EU translation. in M Dasca & R Cerarols (eds), Translation Studies and Ecology: Mapping the Possibilities of a New Emerging Field. 1st edn, Routledge Advances in Translation and Interpreting Studies, Routledge, pp. 40-56.
Clay, E (2022), A Corpus-Based Approach to Examining Terminological Variation in EU Law, International Journal of Language & Law, vol. 11, pp. 142-162. https://doi.org/10.14762/jll.2022.142
Clay, E & McAuliffe, K (2021), Reconceptualising the Third Space of legal translation: a study of the Court of Justice of the European Union, Comparative Legilinguistics, vol. 45, no. 1, pp. 93-126. https://doi.org/10.2478/cl-2021-0005

Allegra Holmes à Court

Allegra Holmes à Court is a fifth-year undergraduate student at the Australian National University, where she is completing a Law/Arts double degree with a major in linguistics. She is currently contributing to an Indigenous language revitalisation project, conducting linguistic analysis of archival records to support community initiatives. She is interested in the intersection of law and linguistics, particularly in the consequences of language ideologies within legal contexts—an area she has written about for Language on the Move. She is currently working as the inaugural LLIRN intern.

Eleanor Kettle

Eleanor Kettle is a PhD student and a Research Assistant with the Research Hub for Language in Forensic Evidence at the University of Melbourne, Australia. Her PhD research area is the forensic transcription of audio featuring non-mainstream varieties of English (NMVE), exploring who should be transcribing these types of audio, and how contextual information may assist in reliable transcription. The aim of this research is to develop evidence-based processes for the reliable transcription of poor-quality forensic audio featuring NMVE, to ensure that only demonstrably reliable transcripts are provided as assistance to the court. In addition, as her specific focus is on NMVE, Eleanor is keen to explore how to represent non-mainstream (or even ‘non-standard’) language features in transcripts while minimising the potential for bias and discrimination of NMVE speakers in the criminal justice system.

Kaela Madrunio, a guest speaker at the 2024 Forensic Linguistic Training Workshop at Quirino State University, The Philippines (Image credit: Kaela Madrunio)

Eleanor has previously worked as a teacher for adult English language learners in Australia and Italy, and as a curriculum and materials developer for basic English literacy materials in eSwatini, as well as developing teaching materials for use in ESL/EFL classrooms.

Recent presentations

Kettle, E., & Fraser, H. (2024a). Evaluating Transcripts of Poor-Quality Forensic Audio: Sine-Wave Speech and Forensic Audio. Proceedings of the Nineteenth Australasian International Conference on Speech Science and Technology, 242-246. https://assta.org/sst-2024/proceedings
Kettle, E., & Fraser, H. (2024b, 26-29 November). “Feel sorry for your ears”: Exploring challenges in transcribing speech with unknown content in unfamiliar varieties ALS Conference, ANU, Canberra. https://als.asn.au/Conference/2024/Program2024
Kettle, E., & Fraser, H. (2025, 30 June – 4 July). “We speak in broken English and a mix of languages”: Listener familiarity as a factor affecting the reliable transcription of non-mainstream varieties of English IAFLL Biennial Conference, University of the Western Cape, South Africa. https://iafll.org/2025/06/25/17th-biennial-conference-of-iafll-final-programme/

Kaela Madrunio

Ma. Kaela Joselle R. Madrunio is a faculty member of the Faculty of Languages and Literature at Philippine Normal University, Manila. She earned her Master’s degree in Forensic Linguistics from Aston University, UK, making her the first Filipino to hold a degree in this field. With this achievement, she embraces both the honor and responsibility of raising awareness of forensic linguistics in the Philippines and contributing to its development as an academic and applied discipline.

Kaela is currently working on a research project that examines migrant narratives through the lens of forensic linguistics, focusing on how migrants use language to frame their experiences and construct their past and present identities. She is also developing a separate paper that analyzes deception in migrant narratives as reflected in Philippine Senate hearings. In addition, she is working on a special issue on multilingualism in Philippine courtrooms, focusing on its implications for justice and legal understanding.

Kaela’s other research interests include plagiarism detection, deceptive language, the role of Philippine English in forensic linguistics, and forensic phonetics, with a particular focus on transcription. Passionate about bridging theory and practice, she currently serves as the Secretary of the Philippine Association for Forensic and Legal Linguistics (PAFLL) and is an Associate Member of the National Research Council of the Philippines (NRCP).

Recent publications

Madrunio, M. K. J. R., & Lintao, R. B. (2023). Power, Control, and Resistance in Philippine and American Police Interview Discourse. International Journal for the Semiotics of Law-Revue internationale de Sémiotique juridique, 37(2), 449-484. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11196-023-10045-8
Madrunio, M. K. J. R., & Madrunio, M. R. (2022). Language in Crisis Negotiations: The Rizal Park Hostage-Taking Incident. 3L: Southeast Asian Journal of English Language Studies, 28(3).

Dr Joe McIntyre

Joe McIntyre is a judicial studies scholar at University of South Australia. What does this mean? Well, basically, he studies all things related to judges and courts – including legal theory orientated work on the nature and function of judges, judicial accountability and impartiality, doctrinal work (particularly in constitutional and administrative law), empirical work (including in JusticeTech, civil justice, and accountability) as well as a range of comparative and interdisciplinary research on all things judicial.

In the last five years, this has led him to the very weird but incredibly interesting world of ‘pseudolaw’ where adherents utilise the forms of law, but not its substance, to advance their case in litigation. Think the sovereign citizen litigant (who was probably waving a red ensign at an anti-vax protest in 2021) arguing that they are not a legal entity and the court has no jurisdiction because the wrong coat of arms is displayed.  Last year, he and colleagues undertook a world-first project interviewing judges and administrators whose work is being profoundly affected by pseudolaw. Given the central role language plays in the performance of pseudolaw, Joe has included two applied linguists on the project team, who helped the team understand the communicative expertise of adherents (look out for their upcoming article in the Alternative Law Journal). And now suddenly Joe feels himself falling down the law and linguistics rabbit hole…

His most recent work in this area “Pareidolic Illusions of Meaning: ChatGPT, Pseudolaw and the Triumph of Form over Substance” explores the connections between pseudolaw and GenAI. In doing so it traverses territory of linguistics, psychology and computer science – and has a lot of fun along the way. Joe is still very new in this law and linguistics space but having fun – but please let him know new things to read or explore.

Recent publications

Hobbs, H., Young, S., & McIntyre, J. (Eds.). (2025). Pseudolaw and Sovereign Citizens. Bloomsbury Publishing. https://doi.org/10.5040/9781509978946.
McIntyre, J. (2025). Pareidolic Illusions of Meaning: ChatGPT, Pseudolaw and the Triumph of Form over Substance. SSRN eLibrary. http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.5181165

Alice Richardson

Alice Richarson is a Doctoral Researcher in the Department of Language and Linguistic Science, University of York, UK. Alice’s PhD by publication examines the role of interpreters in the UK asylum process through three interconnected studies that move from stakeholder perceptions to real-world practice to legal outcomes. Paper 1 uses thematic analysis of interviews with 30 practitioners to reveal that while interpreters and legal professionals favour a ‘conduit’ role emphasising neutrality, this ideal is complicated by practical demands for cultural mediation, role misunderstandings, and the emotional toll of asylum work. Paper 2 employs Hymes’ ethnography of communication framework to analyse privileged observational data from real Home Office asylum interviews, demonstrating how interpreters navigate complex communicative demands in high-stakes institutional settings where prescribed neutrality often conflicts with actual practice. Paper 3 provides empirical evidence of interpreters’ impact on asylum appeal outcomes through mixed-methods analysis of asylum decision notices, showing that interpreting issues range from procedural to critical impacts, with serious errors sometimes forming the central basis for appeals and cases involving substantial interpreting problems being less likely to result in successful outcomes. Together, these papers demonstrate that interpreters can make or break asylum cases and highlight the need for institutional recognition of interpreters’ crucial role in ensuring fair access to justice, particularly given ongoing concerns about service quality following the 2011 outsourcing of court interpreting services.

Momee Tariq

Momee Tariq is a Higher Degree Research Candidate in the School of Law at the University of New England, Australia. Momee is undertaking an MPhil in Law under the supervision of Dr Laura Smith-Khan. Her experience of going through administrative appeal for herself and two dependent children with regards to citizenship made her think about legal literacy for migrant women in terms of self-representation without having any legal backup.

As a result, her research revolves around identifying barriers for migrant women self-litigants in Australia and enhancing legal education to contribute towards a gender-responsive migration system. Momee’s literature review so far suggests that in accessing migration-specific legal information, women face barriers from both internal and external factors. Internally, they may lack legal knowledge in terms of who to get in touch with in accessing relevant information and how to proceed within the prescribed timeframes, difficulty in understanding legal language in the forms and proceedings, financial issues and shame and stigma owing to their cultural background or migration status. Externally, they may be regarded as a burden on the judicial system due to their rising numbers and being a source of extra workload for staff amounting to prejudice and discrimination, the increasing demand for support services that community legal centres provide when they are already strapped financially, issues in translating and interpreting, the use of automated decision-making in government agencies, lack of definitive data regarding self-litigants, and the potential of Alternative Dispute Resolution in supporting migrant women navigate a legal system that is foreign to them. Her research methodology involves desktop research identifying community legal and settlement services and involving them in a survey questionnaire on what migration-specific issues their clients may have experienced. Since there are a limited number of community legal services dedicated to migration support, identifying migrant women’s information needs is essential in providing tailored solutions. This approach will help uncover information seeking practices among migrants and how advances such as AI and creativity can be harnessed towards promoting legal literacy.

Ifé Thompson

Ifé Thompson (pronounced Ee-feh-ee) is a Black Language Researcher, criminal defence barrister at Nexus Chambers, and community organiser leading pioneering work on Black language justice in the UK legal system. Her legal practice challenges how Black British English (BBE), African American Vernacular English (AAVE), and rap or drill lyrics are misrepresented in court as evidence of criminality rather than being recognised as cultural and linguistic rights.

She has transformed defence strategies by centring linguistic expertise and racial justice. In R v LZ (2024), she defended a Black child prosecuted for using AAVE, and in R v L (2022), she successfully challenged the misinterpretation of Jamaican Patois by a non-expert witness. In the widely publicised March 2025 “N-word trial,” she secured the withdrawal of charges against a Black woman accused of obscene communication for using the N-word, arguing that intra-community use of the term must be understood within its cultural and historical context.

Thompson also critiques the weaponisation of hate crime and communications laws against racialised communities, where intra-community language and political critique are increasingly criminalised. In R v X (2023), she defended a client prosecuted for calling a prospective MP a “coon,” asserting the protection of Black political speech under human rights law.

She is the founder of Black Learning Achievement and Mental Health (BLAM UK), which defends BBE in education and has written teacher plenaries and worksheets on Black Languages. Her forthcoming book, Black British English (Palgrave Macmillan, 2025), looks at the history of this contemporary language, the influence of creolised languages and ways we can fashion spaces of linguistic joy and esteem for Black British English speakers.

She is also deeply engaged in language justice via using digital platforms to amplify conversations around Black British linguistic identity. Ife can be found on TikTok (@ifedior), where she shares content as a Black linguistic creator and explores the intersections of race, language, and power.

Podcast

The Black British English Podcast

What about you?

Do you work or do research in an area where language and law intersect? Join the LLIRN and visit our new website!  We run online and in-person events and maintain a lively and growing mailing list, now with members from at least 43 different countries, at diverse stages of their careers, including students, academics, language and legal professionals, and those in policy and decision-making roles.

In-person LLIRN attendees (Image credit: Kristen Martin)

The Law and Linguistics Interdisciplinary Research Network (LLIRN) facilitates interdisciplinary scholars, language professionals and legal professionals around the world to connect and share their work.

Since its establishment, the network has grown significantly, with over 260 members currently, from or based in approximately 43 countries.

To celebrate the 6th anniversary of the network’s establishment, Dr Alexandra Grey (UTS) and Dr Laura Smith-Khan (UNE) organised an Anniversary Workshop on 14 April 2025. It brought LLIRN colleagues together in person and online in a celebration of the network and planning the network’s next collaborations.

Outline

The LLIRN 6th Anniversary Workshop began with a Law Reform Workshop on “The origins and causes of transcript injustice: How legal misconceptions about written and spoken language threaten the right to a fair trial”, led by Prof Helen Fraser, the founding director of the Research Hub for Language and Forensic Evidence at the University of Melbourne.

This was followed by a Next Steps for Collaboration Workshop, led by Dr Laura Smith-Khan (UNE) and Dr Alexandra Grey (UTS), and then an in-person lunch, providing a rare chance for LLIRN members to catch up informally.

Alexandra Grey began the event with an introduction, thanking those who travelled and those online for being a part of the workshop. I was then invited up to deliver an Acknowledgement of Country, where through acknowledging the Gadigal people, I used my own knowledge of Dhurga (a Yuin dialect) and discussed my purpose for this in connection to how language and power are strongly interconnected; coinciding with the lectures presented on the day.

Alex then followed up with her own Acknowledgement and used Gadi words as taught by Prof Jaky Troy, author of The Sydney Language, and broadened my point about language and power in connection to the origins of the LLIRN and the motivations behind ours and our colleagues’ work. After explaining the agenda for the day, Alex and Laura welcomed everyone to the event.

The origins and causes of transcript injustice: How legal misconceptions about written and spoken language threaten the right to a fair trial

After a sweet celebration and congratulations for the LLIRN’s 6th Anniversary, Helen Fraser then narrowed in on the discussion point of transcript injustice in relation to two criminal cases in Australia, including a prominent case involving Stephen Jamieson. From these cases, Fraser highlighted two misconceptions of transcripts in court:

• Misconceptions about what is involved in producing a verbatim transcript
• Misconception that judges themselves can determine post hoc if a transcript is reliable

Fraser highlighted the issue of transcript injustice in relation to both how transcripts are produced and how they are presented in court. Fraser discussed, through the example of Jamieson’s case, the misconceptions surrounding transcript production including the nature of speech being faster than typing and the possibility of police interference and improper investigation tactics in gaining a confession (i.e. ‘verballing’).

Through the second case, Fraser discussed evidence of transcripts used alongside indistinct audio and how they impact a jury’s unbiased opinion. Fraser exemplified such by having us all read a short text and listen to an audio recording to see if we agreed with what was written. To our surprise, we were deceived, as the audio did not match the writing but sounded like it did. In this playful deceit, Fraser made her point about the priming effect transcripts have in audio-based evidence in courts.

From both cases, Fraser acknowledged the work done so far to prevent such inconsistencies which led to injustice in the two cases, as well as pointing out the long way to go to properly prevent these injustices altogether.

After the presentation, the group reflected on ways forward, including the possibility of forming an interest group from which to develop a working group for reform. Some of the ideas suggested as potential responses included reforms to court practice notes about forensic audio evidence, and the need to build more momentum for the awareness of transcript injustice.

Next Steps for Collaboration

After a small break, it was then Alex and Laura’s turn! This workshop featured a lot of in-group discussions and opportunities for LLIRN members to speak on what they would like from the network.

The first point of discussion was joint proposals for conference panels, relating to both national and international Law, Linguistics and other interdisciplinary societies. Various members watching online gave valuable insights about conferences held internationally. We also had the opportunity to hear about conferences that any of the LLIRN members would be attending this year or are eager to attend in the future.

In-person LLIRN attendees in the UTS Law foyer (Image credit: Kristen Martin)

In particular, we’re looking forward to reports from LLIRN members attending the International Association of Forensic & Legal Linguistics conference at University of the Western Cape, Sth Africa, 30 June – 4 July 2025.

Additionally, there are these upcoming conferences as potentially apt for LLIRN collaborations:

• UNSW Law & Justice Legal Education Research Conference, 24 and 25 November 2025, UNSW Law & Justice (Sydney), “The Crowded Curriculum”: submit papers/panels by COB 7 July
• LSAANZ, Uni of Canterbury (NZ), 3-5 December 2025, “Rights, Relationality, Resilience, Reciprocity
• Australian Linguistic Society, Griffith Uni, Gold Coast (Queensland), 2-5 December 2025

Then, the discussion turned to books and the possibility of LLIRN members collaborating on a book. Discussion surrounded a possible book relating to the research of members of the network itself and new opportunities in the Law and Linguistics interdisciplinary area. This collaboration idea will continue to develop over the next year.

Afterwards, there was one final point to discuss in the form of a surprise…

The new LLIRN website!

We ended by launching our new LLLIRN Website ‘Law and Language.’ Laura introduced the website to the network and talked about some of its exciting features!

The Law and Linguistics website offers a place for members to display their new work as well as read work from their colleagues – an overall nice space for colleagues to connect and uplift each other’s work.

From this announcement, the discussions continued about what members would like from the website, including any features that the members would find beneficial. A key point that was acknowledged was the continued upkeep of the website to keep the website relevant, as well as the possibility of students being involved on the website.

The site is still a work in progress, but it already includes a public-facing overview about the network, its scope, publications and activities; pages sharing information about network members’ projects; and a growing set of republished blog posts.

Following the end of Alex and Laura’s workshop, the group shared excitement for the future of the LLIRN and the new opportunities that may arise. The opportunity for members to come together and share new ideas ended the day in a great mood. Such mood then carried into the LLIRN lunch where members laughed and caught up with each other about their academic endeavours. After the success of the workshops, the LLIRN could celebrate its 6th anniversary and remember it as a great day.

Six years later, the LLIRN has grown and we’ve held events, published a law journal special issue that showcased the work of several of our (mainly early career) members, and maintain a lively and growing mailing list, now with members from at least 43 different countries, at diverse stages of their careers, including students, academics, language and legal professionals, and those in policy and decision-making roles.

Since the Network’s inception, one key area of concern is how best we can work – individually and as a community – to integrate law and language expertise in various educational and training contexts, be it working with students in schools or universities, or with professionals in legal settings.

In 2024, we set up a blog series to learn (or “LLIRN”) more about each other, and to make our learning public so that others can learn more about us too. In this latest post, we provide a snapshot of some our Network’s activities related to education. We conceive this theme broadly to include both people who have done research in an educational context, where there is a focus on language and law, and also those who have integrated a language and law focus into education or training that they have designed or delivered, whether in a university or beyond.

This post features LLIRN members from Australia and overseas, working across 11 universities and multiple disciplines.

Donna Butorac, Curtin University, Australia

Donna Butorac coordinates and teaches into the BA major in Anthropology and Sociology at Curtin University. She shares this reflection on how participation in the LLIRN has influenced her teaching:

“I was inspired by what I learned at the excellent Linguistics and Law symposium convened by Alex and Laura at Sydney Uni in 2019 to create a topic titled Language and the Law for my second-year core unit Language and Social Life. The topic introduces some of the ways that language ideology and language use are embedded in the framing and functioning of the Law, explores communication between legal professionals and lay people in legal settings as a form of intercultural (mis)communication, discusses folk linguistics and false beliefs about language as they impact courtroom trials and asylum review hearings, and examines misperceptions about language use, dynamics of power and social inequality involving language use as they play out in specific legal and institutional settings. The lecture covers research by Diana Eades, Susan Ehrlich, Helen Fraser, John Gibbons, Christoph Hafner, Elizabeth Holt and Alison Johnson, Katrijn Maryns, Laura Smith-Khan, and Joseph van Buuren, and in tutorials we discuss some of this research and get students to engage with Helen Fraser’s materials on the Forensic Transcription website.  I love teaching the Language and the Law content and it’s proved quite an eye-opener for our students, making a much-valued contribution to the Language and Social Life curriculum.”

Publications

Ingrid Piller, Donna Butorac, Emily Farrell, Loy Lising, Shiva Motaghi-Tabari and Vera Williams Tetteh (2024) Life in a New Language (Oxford)

The Forensic Stream, Speech and Language Lab, Australian National University, Australia

The Forensic Stream of the Speech and Language Lab at ANU conducts research focused on the forensic analysis of linguistic evidence and related areas, and offers courses within the Forensic Linguistics program. These courses include LING2105, Language and the Law, and LING3032, Forensic Voice and Text Comparison. We are also keen to host highly motivated postgraduate students working on topics relevant to our lab. Please contact LLIRN member and Forensic Stream Leader, Professor Shunichi Ishihara for more details.

Dr Alexandra Grey and Dr Laura Smith-Khan, Macquarie Law School

Alexandra Grey, University of Technology Sydney

Dr Alexandra Grey combines legal and linguistic research approaches to study how governments respond to linguistic diversity, and how those responses redistribute or entrench hierarchies of power, access to resources and social groupings. This often includes studying the place of minority languages in education.

Some of her recent work analyses changes in law and language-in-education policy for preschools and schools in China (Grey and Baioud 2021; Grey 2025). Her (2025) review essay on ‘The Handbook of Linguistic Human Rights’ canvasses multiple chapters on education rights and practices around the world. With LLIRN co-founder, Dr Laura Smith-Khan, she has examined the limited inclusion of linguistic concepts and linguistic research in legal studies in Australia, as a stepping stone to potential curriculum reform (Grey and Smith-Khan 2021b). Together, they have also mapped law-and-linguistics research around the legislature, executive and judiciary, to assist non-linguists and legal practitioners navigate the field (Grey and Smith-Khan 2021a). One of Alex’s earliest studies evaluated a bilingual, NGO-led clinical legal education model (Grey 2020).

Alex’s current research focuses on self-determination and the role of governments in Aboriginal language renewal in New Soth Wales (NSW), the most populous state in Australia. She was part of the Indigenous-led team authoring The Benefits of Aboriginal Language Use and Revival – Literature Review for the NSW Aboriginal Languages Trust in 2021; this public resource includes a section on the educational benefits of Aboriginal language renewal in NSW. Alex is especially interested in collaborations with First Nations scholars in Taiwan, NZ and Canada, and in collaborations about interdisciplinary methods.

Relevant publications:

Smith-Khan, L. and Grey, A. (2020) ‘Reflections on developing research collaborations across law and linguistics’, Journal & Proceedings of the Royal Society of NSW 152(3). 332–337. ISSN 0035-9173/18/020332-06

Grey, A. (2020) [Open Access]. ‘The value of participant feedback: Insights from learners in a novel, non-university CLE setting in China, International Journal of Clinical Legal Education. 27(2). 5-67. https://doi.org/10.19164/ijcle.v27i2.959.

Thorpe, K., Booker, L., Grey, A., Rigney, D. and Galassi, M. (2021) [Open Access]. The Benefits of Aboriginal Language Use and Revival – Literature Review. UTS Jumbunna Institute of Indigenous Education and Research. https://www.alt.nsw.gov.au/assets/Uploads/downloads/files/The-Benefits-of-Aboriginal-Language-Use-and-Revival-in-New-South-Wales-Literature-Review.pdf

Grey, A. and Baioud, G. (2021) [Open Access]. ‘Education Reforms Aim to Mold Model Citizens from Preschool in the PRC’. China Brief. 21 (17) 23-29. The Jamestown Foundation: Washington. https://jamestown.org/program/educational-reforms-aim-to-mold-model-citizens-from-preschool-in-the-prc/

Grey, A. and Smith-Khan, L. (2021a). ‘Bringing linguistic research into legal scholarship and practice’. Alternative Law Journal 46(1). 64-70. https://doi.org/10.1177/1037969X20962830

Grey, A. and Smith-Khan, L. (2021b). ‘Linguistic diversity as a challenge and an opportunity for improved legal policy’. Griffith Law Review 30(1). 1-17.  https://doi.org/10.1080/10383441.2021.1996883

Grey, A. (forthcoming 2025) [Review Essay, Open Access]. ‘The Handbook of Linguistic Human Rights (Skutnabb-Kangas, Tove and Phillipson, Robert (eds). 2023. Wiley Blackwell. Pp712 + viii)’. Sociolinguistic Studies, issue 19.1. https://utppublishing.com/journal/ss

Grey, A. (2025) [Open Access]. China’s official common language gains further strength against minority languages. Melbourne Asia Review, Edition 21 https://www.melbourneasiareview.edu.au/chinas-official-common-language-gains-further-strength-against-minority-languages/. (Also available in Chinese, 中文: 中国的官方通用语言面对少数民族语言的优势更为显著 https://www.melbourneasiareview.edu.au/中国的官方通用语言在少数民族语言面前进一步强/

Sandra Hale, University of New South Wales, Australia

Professor Sandra Hale is convenor of the Interpreting and Translation programs at the University of New South Wales where she teaches the course Interpreting in Legal Settings, which delves into the language of police interviews, tribunal hearings and court hearings and trials with interpreters. She has been training judicial officers and tribunal members on working effectively with interpreters for over 20 years. She has also delivered professional development on the language of the law and legal interpreting to interpreting practitioners through the Australian Institute of Interpreters and Translators (AUSIT). She has been invited to speak on this topic at numerous conferences for legal professionals, interpreting professionals and linguists. Her research has included assessing the effectiveness of training.

Publications

Napier, J., Russell, D., Hale, S., Spencer, D., & San Roque, M. (2022). Training legal interpreters to work with deaf jurors. In J. L. Brunson (Ed.), Legal Interpreting: Teaching, Research and Practice (pp. 246-281). Washington D.C.: Gallaudet University Press.

Hale, S. (2021). The need to raise the bar. Court interpreters as specialized experts, in M. Coulthard, A. May and R. Sousa-Silva (eds.). Handbook of Forensic Linguistics, 2^nd Edition. London & NY: Routledge (pp 484-501).

Hale, S. (2019). Specialist legal interpreters for a fairer justice system. In S. Faiq (Ed.), Discourse in Translation (1st ed., pp. 47-66). Oxford & NY: Routledge.

Hale, S. (2015). Approaching the Bench: Teaching Magistrates and Judges how to work effectively with interpreters. MonTI. Monografías de Traducción e Interpretación, 7, 163-180.

Hale, S., & Ozolins, U. (2014). Monolingual short courses for language-specific accreditation: can they work? A Sydney experience. The Interpreter and Translation Trainer, 8(2), 1-23. doi: 10.1080/1750399X.2014.929371

Hale, S. (2004/2010). The discourse of court interpreting. Discourse practices of the law, the witness and the interpreter. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. http://benjamins.com/#catalog/books/btl.52/main

Spanish Supreme Court judge, Ignacio Sancho Gargallo and his co-author Dr Ricardo-María Jiménez-Yáñez (UIC Barcelona) (both middle back) with Antonio Garrigues, Fernando Vives, Mercedes de Prada (both in front) and judges, scholars and writers, celebrating the launch of the book “El derecho a entender el Derecho.”

Ricardo Jiménez-Yáñez

Professor Ricardo Jiménez-Yáñez is an applied linguist and discourse analyst whose work is interested in professional communication, including in court decisions, legal practice, and the drafting of laws. He regularly shares his research expertise with professional stakeholders, most recently presenting work on linguistic clarity in the drafting of public international legal treaties with treaty writers. He has also published guidelines for drafting clearer court decisions, co-authored with a Spanish Supreme Court judge and has delivered training on this topic in a course for Spanish judges.

Selected Publications

Jiménez-Yáñez, RM & Mut-Bosque, M (2025) La escritura jurídica de tratados internacionales: claridad, congruencia y corrección [The legal writing of international treaties: Clarity, consistency, and accuracy] http://dx.doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.25505.11368

Sancho Gargallo, I & Jiménez-Yáñez, RM (2024) El oficio de juez y la redacción de sentencias [the profession of judge and the drafting of sentences], in De Prada, Mercedes (ed) El Derecho a entender el Derecho. Alcance y límites del lenguaje jurídico [The right to understand the law: Scope and limits of legal language] , ed. Tirant lo Blanch, Valencia https://www.researchgate.net/publication/380576266_El_oficio_de_juez_y_la_redaccion_de_sentencias

Jiménez-Yáñez, RM (2023) Escribir bien es de justicia [Writing well is justice], 3.ª edición, Aranzadi, Pamplona.

Jiménez-Yáñez, RM & Giner, D (2018) What are Spanish Law Firms doing to Improve their Lawyers’ Writing Skills? In J Engberg et al (eds), Popularization and Knowledge Mediation in the Law/ Popularisierung und Wissensvermittlung im Recht (LIT Verlag) https://www.researchgate.net/publication/377241685_What_are_Spanish_Law_Firms_doing_to_Improve_their_Lawyers’_Writing_Skills#fullTextFileContent

Hanna Sofia Rehnberg (Uppsala University), Zoe Nikolaidou (Södertörn University), Cecilia Wadensjö (Stockholm University)

The research project Asylum Narratives, conducted by three Swedish linguists, examines communication in the asylum process, with a particular focus on the asylum interview conducted by the Swedish Migration Authority. The main research questions are: How are asylum narratives co-constructed by all participants in the interview, including the interpreter? How are these narratives transformed during their “textual travel” through the asylum process? Their research results have attracted the interest of case officers and decision-makers at the Swedish Migration Authority, as well as asylum judges, who have invited them to conduct several training workshops on communication in asylum interviews.

Selected Publications

Rehnberg, Hanna Sofia, 2023. Positioning of applicants in asylum interviews: Case officers as recontextualizing agents. Language in Society, p. 1–23. E-pub ahead of print.  https://doi.org/10.1017/S004740452300101X

Wadensjö, Cecilia, Hanna Sofia Rehnberg & Zoe Nikolaidou, 2022. Managing a discourse of reporting: The complex composing of an asylum narrative. Multilingua, 42(2), p. 191–213. https://doi.org/10.1515/multi-2022-0017

Nikolaidou, Zoe, Hanna Sofia Rehnberg & Cecilia Wadensjö, 2022. “Do I have to say exactly word by word?”: The discursive (re)construction and negotiation of asymmetrical relations in asylum interviews. Journal of Migration and Integration, 24(4), p. 745–768. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12134-022-00945-2

Nikolaidou, Zoe, Hanna Sofia Rehnberg & Cecilia Wadensjö, 2019. Negotiating access with public authorities in research on asylum. Working papers in urban language and literacies, paper 262. (Ed. Ben Rampton.) London: Centre for Language, Discourse and Communication, King’s College. Available: https://wpull.org/product/wp262-negotiating-access-with-public-authorities-in-research-on-asylum/

Dima Rusho, Monash University, Australia

Dima Rusho’s research explores the language and communication barriers affecting Indigenous Australians’ access to the justice system in remote communities, emphasising these inequalities as a critical social justice issue. She also teaches law students at Monash University, most recently in LAW5453: Language, Communication, and the Legal Process, a unit for Juris Doctor and Masters students. The unit examines the complexities of legal language, its role in statutes and contracts, courtroom communication, mediation, investigative processes, and cross-cultural interactions, including working with interpreters. Her future research will focus on developing language support models that incorporate advocacy to improve access and equity in legal settings.

Publications

Rusho, D., Bradley, J., & Dickson, G. (in press). Tailoring language support in legal contexts for Indigenous communities: Insights from Ngukurr and Borroloola. Trends and Issues in Crime and Criminal Justice.

Rusho, D. (2024). Coloniality and Australian Indigenous language interpreting in legal settings. In F. Ndhlovu & S. Ndlovu-Gatsheni (Eds.), Routledge handbook of language and decolonisation (ch 15). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003313618-15

Rusho, D. (2023). First Nations interpreters cannot be neutral and should not be invisible. Translation & Interpreting, 15(1), 120–134. https://doi.org/10.12807/TI.115201.2023.A06

Rusho, D. (2022). Cross-currents: Indigenous language interpreting in Australia’s justice system [Doctoral dissertation]. https://doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.13545.42084

Cindy Schneider, University of New England, Australia

Linguistics at the University of New England (Australia) has offered the very popular unit, Language and the Law, for more than a decade. The unit has been a drawcard for undergraduate and postgraduate students in Linguistics, Law, Criminology, and other areas. The class examines the nature of legal language and how it is exploited for maximum effect in the legal system. Using Australian case studies as much as possible, we look at extracts of police interviews and courtroom interactions to understand how language can be used as a tool to reinforce social advantage or disadvantage. We also review the forensic applications of language: disputes over meanings (e.g. contracts and copyright cases); indistinct audio recordings; and authorship analysis.

Dr Cindy Schneider has been the primary coordinator of Language and the Law since its initial offering. With a background in language description, Cindy has published several papers on intelligibility between closely related language varieties, and how speakers of less well-understood, less powerful varieties (such as minority dialects and creoles) can suffer from legal, educational, and socio-economic disadvantage. She has also worked as an expert linguist in a large legal case concerned with poorly drafted legal documents.

Laura Smith-Khan, University of New England, Australia

Laura Smith-Khan’s most recently completed project examined the university course provided for people wanting to become migration law practitioners in Australia. The study explored students’ multilingual repertoires, practices, and beliefs and how these intersected with their learning experiences, identity construction, and career plans.

As part of her collaboration with the teaching team in the course, Laura also delivered a series of lectures, and helped refine other learning materials and activities, embedding sociolinguistic expertise in the offerings related to conducting client consultations, and was recognized by two awards.

Publications

Smith-Khan, L. (accepted, forthcoming) Intercultural Communication in Migration Law Education, in T. Grieshofer & K. Haworth (eds), Communication and Legal Practice: Language, Procedure, Process (Cambridge University Press).

Smith-Khan, L. & Giles, C. (2025). Improving client communication skills in migration law and practice education. Alternative Law Journal (advanced access) https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1037969X251314205

Smith-Khan, L. (2023). Intercultural Communication in Migration Law Practice. 3 July Language on the Move https://languageonthemove.com/intercultural-communication-in-migration-law-practice/

Smith-Khan, L. (2021). ‘Common language’ and proficiency tests: A critical examination of registration requirements for Australian Registered Migration Agents. Griffith Law Review, 30(1), 97-121, https://doi.org/10.1080/10383441.2021.1900031

Rukiya Stein, University of New England, Australia

Rukiya Stein has presented at the Australian Institute of Judicial Administration (AIJA) Conference on effective communication with vulnerable individuals and linguistic complexity in the criminal justice process. She has also presented to District Court and Children’s Court Judges and she has run training for judicial officers at the National Judicial Commission of Australia (NJCA) sexual assault proceedings learning series.

Publications

Stein, R (2024) Vulnerability and the Right to Effective Participation in the Criminal Justice Process: The Role of the Witness Intermediary (October) 36(9), Judicial Officers’ Bulletin, Judicial Commission of NSW. https://search.informit.org/doi/10.3316/informit.T2024102800000200843973055

Stein, R and Goodman-Delahunty, J (2024) ‘Bridging the Justice Gap: Inequity in Provision of Intermediary Assistance for Adults with Disabilities’ Alternative Law Journal https://doi.org/10.1177/1037969X241307092

This post is one of the outcomes of a themed session on law and linguistics research held at the ALS Conference on 27 November.

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Dr Joseph van Buuren

ALS Conference (L-R): Dr Alexandra Grey and Dr Joseph van Buuren, November 2024

Joe van Buuren is currently working as a lecturer in Criminology and Justice studies at RMIT University in Narrm (Melbourne). His work has focused broadly on the ways that discretionary power is exercised by police and courts in the provision, and denial, of interpreter access of language minoritised witnesses and accused people. He is particularly interested in examining how this power can reflect an ideological adherence to ‘English-only’ communication.

More recently, his research has examined the ways that legal judicial discourses operate to deny the racialised dimensions of linguistic discrimination and marginalisation. This denial extends to the law itself, which courts can frame as operating ‘neutrally’ to race, while doing anything but in relation to language. This denialism, sustained judicial narratives of formal equality, contributes to the criminalisation of language minoritised people within the criminal punishment system.

Recent Publication

van Buuren, J. (2024). Justice in English-only. Social and Legal Studies, 33(2), 191–212. https://www.rmit.edu.au/contact/staff-contacts/academic-staff/v/van-buuren-dr-joseph

Dr Dissake Koumassol Midinette Endurence

Dr Dissake Koumassol Midinette Endurence’s research examines language-related challenges in courtroom discourse in the Republic of Cameroon. She utilises Speech Act Theory and Interactional Sociolinguistics to analyse the speech acts of both legal professionals and lay litigants. She demonstrates that the use of exoglossic languages in such a multilingual nation poses serious issues for effective communication in the legal context.

Dr Dissake Koumassol Midinette Endurence

Her current research project, sponsored by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, aims to demonstrate that the implementation of statutory laws from legal systems such as Civil and Common Law does not adequately address the legal needs of African Indigenous communities.

To establish the effectiveness of oral legal traditions in African rural communities, she has also documented, transcribed, translated, and analysed the Tunen language and the legal traditions of the Banen community in Cameroon.

More broadly, her research intends to explain the field of Forensic Linguistics by exploring African oral traditions. She introduces a novel approach to legal linguistic by examining traditional courtroom discourse in native and foreign languages.

Recent Publications

Dissake, K. M. Endurence. (2021). Language and legal proceedings: Analysing courtroom discourse in Cameroon. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Dissake, K. M. Endurence. (2021). Assessing litigant’s language proficiency: The case of the Bafoussam Court of First Instance. Language policy 21. 217-234.

Emma Genovese

Emma Genovese is a PhD Candidate and Quentin Bryce Law Doctoral Scholar at the University of Technology Sydney, Australia. Her PhD research draws from queer and corpus linguistic method to explore the construction of sex, gender, and sexuality in Australian law. Her work is focused upon uncovering the normative and historical underpinnings of legislation, along with emphasising how these constructs negatively impact queer identities.

UNSW Law Journal Launch, Emma Genovese, July 2023

As part of her research, Emma built the Australian Legislative Corpus 2023 (‘ALC23’). The ALC23 includes all available and machine-readable acts, regulations, and rules across the nine major jurisdictions in Australia. It includes in force legislation as at 30 June 2023, and is able to be searched according to a variety of different sub-corpora.

More recently, her research examined cases in Australian criminal courts that referenced, or involved, trans people, in order to critique the language used by judicial officers. She argued that judicial judgments often disregard, dismiss, or deny the experiences of trans people. Her article also demonstrated that the lack of knowledge surrounding trans issues also had implications on the outcome of cases.

Recent publications

Genovese, E. (Forthcoming). Building the Australian Legislative Corpus 2023 – Combatting Issues and Highlighting Applications of General Legislative Corpora. International Journal of Law and Language.

Genovese, E. (2023). The Spectacle of Respectable Equality: Queer Discrimination in Australian Law Post Marriage Equality. UNSW Law Journal 46(2). 650-727.

Genovese, E. (2023). Administering harm: the treatment of trans people in Australian criminal courts. Current Issues in Criminal Justice 36(2). 177-196.

Dr Alexandra Grey

Dr Alexandra Grey combines legal and linguistic research approaches to study how governments respond to linguistic diversity, and how those responses redistribute or entrench hierarchies of power, access to resources and social grouping.

Her early work focused on laws supporting the inclusion of the Zhuang minority language in the ‘linguistic landscapes’ of China, and she has recently updated this work with an analysis of a decision in China that deemed certain regulations about bilingual schooling unconstitutional.

She has also focused on the application of international human rights law about linguistic discrimination. This includes in relation to the need of to engage with linguistic inclusion to fulfill their right to health obligations when communicating about Covid, along with whether a ban on prisoners in Australia communicating in languages other than English was a form of racial discrimination of impinged upon their freedom of expression.

Alexandra is currently working with First Nations colleagues on research about self-determination and the role of governments in Aboriginal language renewal in NSW, Australia, and a related study of the increased use of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages in parliaments across Australia and certain parliamentary rules which restrict this inclusion. She’s especially interested in collaborations on related themes with First Nations scholars in Taiwan, NZ and Canada, and in collaborations about interdisciplinary methods.

Recent publications

Grey, A. (2021). Language Rights in a Changing China: A National Overview and Zhuang Case Study, (Contributions to the Sociology of Language #113) De Gruyter: Boston.

Grey, A. (2021). Language Rights in a Changing China: A National Overview and Zhuang Case Study, Abridged Mandarin Version (translated by Gegentuul Baioud), 1-22. Language on the Move: Sydney.

K Thorpe, L Booker, A Grey, D Rigney, and M Galassi. (2021). The Benefits of Aboriginal Language Use and Revival – Literature Review. UTS Jumbunna Institute of Indigenous Education and Research.

Grey, A. and Smith-Khan, L. (2021). ‘Linguistic diversity as a challenge and an opportunity for improved legal policy’. Griffith Law Review 30(1). 1-17.

Grey, A. (2021). ‘Perceptions of invisible Zhuang minority language in Linguistic Landscapes of the People’s Republic of China and implications for language policy’. Linguistic Landscape 7(3). 259-284

Grey, A. (2022). ‘How Standard Zhuang has Met with Market Forces’, in Nicola McLelland and Hui Zhao (eds) Language Standardization and Language Variation in Multilingual Contexts: Asian Perspectives (#171, Multilingual Matters series). De Gruyter, 163-182.

Grey, A. (2023). Lawful limits on freedom of expression for private communications ‘in public life’. Cambridge International Law Journal 12(2). 328–336.

Grey, A. (2023). Communicative Justice and Covid-19: Australia‘s pandemic response and international guidance. Sydney Law Review 45(1). 1-43

Grey, A. (in print for 2025). ‘The Handbook of Linguistic Human Rights’, Tove Skutnabb-Kangas and Robert Phillipson’ (Skutnabb-Kangas, Tove and Phillipson, Robert (eds). 2023. The Handbook of Linguistic Human Rights. Wiley Blackwell. 712 + viii. Sociolinguistic Studies, issue 19.1.

Dr Stafford Lumsden

Dr Stafford Lumsden is the in-house educational designer at the University of Sydney Law School. He applies his interest in multimodality and social semiotics to the design and development of online learning environments for units in the LLB, JD, and masters programs. Currently, he is part of a team investigating the use of inclusive Socrative approaches in undergraduate law units to increase student engagement and inclusivity among diverse student cohorts. His recent work has focused on the use of semiotic resources other than language in online teacher training, and in September 2024 he presented on the topic at the 22nd International CALL Research Conference hosted by the Waseda University Law School.

Stafford is keen to collaborate with legal education researchers interested in the use of text, video, audio, and non-language semiotic resources in online teaching and learning in law.

Recent Publications

Lumsden, S. (In Press). A multimodal social semiotic approach to TESOL educator professional development. In A. Alm, C. Lai, & Q. Ma (Eds.), Transitions in CALL. Castledown.

Lumsden, S. (2024, September). A multimodal social semiotic approach to TESOL educator professional development. In Proceedings of the International CALL Research Conference (Vol. 2024, pp. 163-168).

Lumsden, S., Djonov, E., and Slatyer, H. (2024). The multimodal community of inquiry: A framework for evaluating online learning environments in higher education in Lim, V.L. and Querol-Julián (Eds.) Designing Learning with Digital Technologies. Perspectives from Multimodality Education. Routledge.

Lumsden, S. (2023). Student Writing Support with Generative Artificial Intelligence. The English Connection 27(3). 7–12.

Dr Kashif Raza

Dr Kashif Raza is a SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow at the Faculty of Education, University of British Columbia, Canada. His research focuses on language-in-immigration policies in Canada and their impact on the immigration, settlement, and integration experiences of multilingual skilled immigrants.

At the federal level, he examines how Canada’s points-based immigration system, which incorporates language testing, marginalizes linguistic diversity among the multilingual skilled workforce. Provincially, his work investigates the limited availability of translation and interpretation services in Alberta’s legal system, highlighting a reliance on co-ethnic legal counsel.

This provincial dimension is a key area of interest in his research and he is currently exploring the ways co-ethnic lawyers use their shared linguistic repertoire to support clients with lower English skills and how this mediates multilingual communication in legal procedures.

Recent Publications

Raza, K. (2022). Linguistic outcomes of language accountability and points-based system for multilingual skilled immigrants in Canada: A critical language-in-immigration policy analysis. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 45(7). 2605-2619

Dr Dima Rusho

Dr Dima Rusho’s research examines the language and communication barriers impacting access to the justice system for Indigenous Australians in remote communities. Dima is particularly interested in exploring inequalities of access as a critical social justice issue. Dima has recently completed a project about optimising interpreting and other forms of language support for Indigenous Kriol speakers in circuit courts in two remote communities: Ngukurr and Borroloola.

Rukiya Stein at the Vulnerable Accused in the Justice System Conference in Birmingham, 2023

Dima’s future research will continue to explore the provision of language support for Indigenous language speakers, with a focus on establishing language support models involving advocacy.

Recent Publications

Rusho, D., Bradley, J., and Dickson, G. (Forthcoming). Tailoring language support in legal contexts for Indigenous communities: Insights from Ngukurr and Borroloola. Trends and Issues in crime and criminal justice.

Rusho, D. (2024). Coloniality and Australian Indigenous language interpreting in legal settings. In Ndhlovu, F. & Ndlovu-Gatsheni, S. (Eds), Routledge Handbook of Language and Decolonisation. Routledge.

Rusho, D. (2023). First Nations interpreters cannot be neutral and should not be invisible. Translation and Interpreting, 15(1). 120-134.

Rusho, D. (2022). Cross-currents: Indigenous language interpreting in Australia’s justice system [PhD thesis].

Rukiya Stein

Rukiya Stein is an Accredited Witness Intermediary, an independent communication intermediary and a Certified Speech and Language Pathologist who facilitates communication for vulnerable children and adults when they give evidence in investigative interviews and at court. Her current thesis explores the role of the intermediary on lawyer questioning and the evidence provided by adults with disabilities in the Australian criminal justice process. She is specifically examining the linguistic complexity of cross-examination, intermediary recommendations on the structure and form of questioning and the clarity of evidence.

She is currently an intern at the Judicial Commission of New South Wales. She has provided a number of trainings and workshops to judges, magistrates and lawyers on effective communication in the courtroom, the intermediary role and effect of disability on participation in the justice process.

Recent Publications

Stein, R., and Goodman-Delahunty, J. (Forthcoming) Bridging the Justice Gap: Inequity in Provision of Intermediary Assistance for Adults with Disabilities, Alternative Law Journal.

What about you?

Do you work or research in an area related to multilingualism in courts and tribunals, or another area where language and law intersect? Join the LLIRN!

What other language and law topics would you like to learn about? Have your say on our next “LLIRN About Us” blog post. Let us know in the comments or join the network and send us an email!

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Laura Smith-Khan and Alex Grey

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Dr Jinhyun Cho

Dr Jinhyun Cho has investigated interplays between monolingualism and multilingual practices in courtrooms, with a focus on interpreters. Focusing on linguistic, institutional and cultural hierarchies in Australian legal spaces, Dr Jinhyun Cho’s work has revealed how power differentials influence the choices that legal interpreters make in the course of interpreting and drawn attention to the need for legal professionals to enhance their awareness of interpreting through the formalisation of multilingualism within university-level studies of law. She is based at Macquarie University in Australia.

Her 2024 collaborative work on the Khmer Rouge Tribunal (the ECCC) represents her broad interdisciplinary approach which brings together interpreting, sociolinguistics and law.

Recent publications

Killean, R., Grey, R., Cho, J., & Stern, L. (2024). Translating atrocity at the Khmer Rouge Tribunal. New Mandala.
Cho, J. (2021). Intercultural communication in interpreting: Power and choices. Routledge.
Cho, J. (2021). ‘That’s not how we speak’: interpreting monolingual ideologies in courtrooms. Griffith Law Review, 30(1), 50-70.

Research project team (L-R): Dr Julie Lim, Professor Ludmila Stern, Professor Sandra Hale, Associate Professor Melanie Schwartz and Professor Stephen Doherty, April 2024

Professor Sandra Hale

In addition to her role in the project led by Ludmila Stern described below, Sandra Hale and another team at the University of New South Wales in Australia (Prof Jane Goodman-Delahunty, Dr Natalie Martschuk and Dr Susan Brandon) have been working since 2020 on a project funded by the United States’ Federal Bureau of Investigation entitled ‘Remote simultaneous interpreting in investigative interviews: The effect of language and interpreter training on deception detection, interpreting accuracy and witness credibility’. Keep an eye out for publications coming out of this project soon.

Recent publications

Hale, S., Martschuk, N., Goodman-Delahunty, J. & Lim, J. (30 Apr 2024): Juror perceptions in bilingual interpreted trials, Perspectives: Studies in Translation Theory and Practice.
Hale, S., Lim, J., Martschuk, N., & Goodman-Delahunty, J. (2023). Note-taking in court interpreting: Interpreter perceptions and practices in a simulated trial. The International Journal for Translation & Interpreting Research, pp.1-21.
Hale, S., Goodman-Delahunty, J., Martschuk, N., & Lim, J. (2022). Does interpreter location make a difference? A study of remote vs face-to-face interpreting in simulated police interviews. Interpreting:  International Journal of Research and Practice in Interpreting, 24(2), pp.221-253.

Michael Jones

Michael Jones has been involved with the interpreting and translation profession for over 40 years and has worked as a NAATI accredited translator and interpreter between English and Italian, French, Portuguese and Spanish (NAATI is Australia’s National Accreditation Authority for Translators and Interpreters). He likes to call himself a language nerd. He has always been fascinated with languages since growing up in Sydney near two of the old migrant camps of the 1960s. He studied Linguistics at Sydney University in the 1970s.

As a lawyer specialising in immigration and citizenship law, Michael Jones also works extensively with interpreters and translators in courts, tribunals and other professional settings, and is happy to share his experiences and observations with others studying the field.

Dr Rachel Killean and Dr Rosemary Grey

In 2023, University of Sydney Law School researchers Rachel Killean and Rosemary Grey launched a new project ‘Translating Atrocity: Bridging language barriers in Cambodia’s war crimes tribunal.’ The project focuses on challenges of interpretation and translation arising in the United Nations-backed Extraordinary Chambers in the Court of Cambodia (ECCC) which works across the Khmer, English and French languages. Drawing on their original interviews with translators and interpreters who worked at the court, Rachel Killean and Rosemary Grey are identifying Khmer terms that have been difficult to translate into English and French and vice-versa; examining how translation challenges have been addressed; and assessing how translators and interpreters have affected the tribunal’s capacity to assess evidence and communicate effectively with the public. The findings have potential value for the functioning of other international tribunals, including the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

Members of the public arriving at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia to hear its main judgment (Image credit: Rosemary Grey, Phnom Penh, 2018

Rachel Killean and Rosemary Grey hope to continue collaborations with translation studies scholars, as well as interpreters/translators working in international criminal justice.

Recent publications

Killean, R., Grey, R. (2023). Interpretation and Translation in Atrocity Trials: Insights from the Khmer Rouge Tribunal. Cambridge International Law Journal, 12(2), 211-234.
Grey, R. (2022). Translating Gender Diversity in International Criminal Law: An Impossible but Necessary Goal. Australian Feminist Law Journal, 47(2), 163-186.
Killean, R., Grey, R., Cho, J. and Stern. L., ‘Translating atrocity at the Khmer Rouge Tribunal‘, New Mandala, 17 January 2024.
Grey, R. and Stern, L., ‘“Kadago’ in the Courtroom: Language Disputes in Atrocity Trials‘, Opinio Juris, 31 January 2024:

Dr Lucy Xin LIU

Dr Lucy Liu Xin’s research centres on the accuracy of Mandarin-English court interpreting and its implications for due process. She is particularly interested in exploring the interface between interpreting and pragmatics in legal settings. Her recent work explores the multimodal aspects of court interpreting, such as examining multimodal turn-taking strategies of court interpreters and utilizing acoustic tools for the analysis of courtroom discourse. She is based at Dalian University of Technology in China.

Recent publications

Liu, X., & Wang, C. (2023). How Does Interpreter’s Intonation Affect the Pragmatics of Courtroom Questions? A Case Study of Chinese-English Court Interpreting. In J. Zhao, D. Li, & V. L. C. Lei (Eds.), New Advances in Legal Translation and Interpreting (pp. 137-162). Singapore: Springer.
Liu, X. (2020). Pragmalinguistic challenges for trainee interpreters in achieving accuracy: An analysis of questions and their translation in five cross-examinations. Interpreting, 22(1), 87-116.
Stern, L., & Liu, X. (2020). Interpreting Studies. In S. Laviosa & M. González Davies (Eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Translation and Education (pp. 226-244). Oxfordshire: Routledge.
Stern, L., & Liu, X. (2019). Ensuring interpreting quality in legal and courtroom settings: Australian Language Service Providers’ perspectives on their role. The Journal of Specialised Translation(32), 90-120.
Stern, L., & Liu, X. (2019). See you in court: How do Australian institutions train legal interpreters? The Interpreter and Translator Trainer, 13(4), 361-389.

Dr Laura Smith-Khan

Laura Smith-Khan’s work explores how multilingualism is managed in and conceptualized by tribunals and courts in the context of assessing credibility in asylum applications in Australia. This was one focus of her doctoral research and has continued to be an area of interest in her more recent work.

She has also examined how migration lawyers and agents play a role in mediating multilingual communication in migration procedures, both at the initial application stage and at the tribunal, when an appeal is necessary. This work has led her to travel to Belgium in 2023 to spend time at Ghent University as a visiting scholar, and where she continues to have an external affiliation with UGhent’s Centre for the Social Study of Migration and Refugees. She has presented her research to judges and other decision-makers from Australia and internationally and it has also been cited in EU Agency for Asylum guidance on credibility and evidence assessment.

Recent publications

Smith-Khan, L. (forthcoming). Incredible language and refugee legal processes: Challenging asylum credibility assessments, in J Setter et al (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Language and Prejudice.
Maryns, K., Smith-Khan, L. & Jacobs, M. (2023). Multilingualism in asylum and migration procedures, in McKinney et al (eds), Routledge Handbook of Multilingualism, 2^nd ed, Ch. 26.
Smith-Khan, L. (2023). Incorporating sociolinguistic perspectives in Australian refugee credibility assessments: The case of CRL18. Journal of International Migration and Integration, 24, 727-743 (invited contribution for special issue).
Smith-Khan, L. (2021). ‘I Try Not to Be Dominant, but I’m a Lawyer!’: Advisor Resources, Context and Refugee Credibility. Journal of Refugee Studies, 34(4), 3710-3733.
Smith-Khan, L. (2019). Why refugee visa credibility assessments lack credibility: A critical discourse analysis, Griffith Law Review, 28(4), 406-430.

Professor Ludmila Stern

Professor Ludmila Stern is leading a team including Professor Sandra Hale, Professor Stephen Doherty and Associate Professor Melanie Schwartz from the University of New South Wales in Australia and a number of partner organizations on the project, Access to justice in interpreted proceedings: The role of Judicial Officers, funded by an Australian Research Council Linkage Grant.

The research team is examining the ways judicial officers can improve courtroom communication and prevent miscommunication and error, particularly in criminal cases where speakers of ‘new and emerging’ and First Nations languages are involved, and where interpreters receive limited or no specialised training. Using an interdisciplinary approach that involves court observations, interviews with judicial officers and interpreters, and discourse analysis of court transcripts, the project aims to generate new knowledge about the variations in judicial officers’ communications practice when working with interpreters, and their impact on the effective transmission of information in the courtroom.

Having initially started in two international courts, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia / International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals and the International Criminal Court, the project then focused on the way judges and magistrates work in interpreted proceedings in Australia courts, with field work now completed in the Australian jurisdictions of New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania, Queensland, Western Australia and the Northern Territory.

Dr Xiaoyu Zhao

Dr Xiaoyu Zhao recently completed her PhD on interpreting studies at the University of New South Wales in Australia. Her PhD project investigated the impact of court-specific factors on Simultaneous Interpreting performance and explains these factors’ effects using Cognitive Load Theory. Her research has provided empirical evidence that enhances the understanding of the impact of task-, environment-, and interpreter-related factors on Simultaneous Interpreting performance in the court context. Additionally, it offers insights into interpreter training and professional practices that align with both national and international standards aimed at improving interpreters’ working conditions.

Dr Xiaoyu Zhao is currently working as an adjunct lecturer at Monash University in Australia and as a research fellow at the Monash Suzhou Research Institute in China. Her current research projects include a corpus analysis of interpreted texts in court settings and court interpreting pedagogy.

Recent publications

Zhao, X. (2023). A multidimensional investigation of cognitive load and performance over time during simultaneous interpreting between English and Mandarin Chinese [Doctoral dissertation, UNSW Syndey]. UNSWorks.

What about you?

Do you work or research in an area related to multilingualism in courts and tribunals, or another area where language and law intersect? Join the LLIRN!

What other language and law topics would you like to learn about? Have your say on our next “LLIRN About Us” blog post. Let us know in the comments or join the network and send us an email!

Upcoming Events

Multilingualism in courts and tribunals is the focus of two presentations scheduled within a themed session at the upcoming Australian Linguistic Society Conference (26-29 November at ANU). The session’s overall theme is ‘Law-and-Linguistics Research: Language, Diversity and Inclusion in Law’, and includes:

• Joseph van Buuren presenting new research on Australian criminal appeal judgements where applicants claim they have been denied rights or procedural fairness on the basis of language difference;
• Helen Fraser promoting inclusivity and justice in the use of language as forensic evidence by analysing the origins of linguistic ideologies and misconceptions in the law.

NSW Police (Image credit: Edwina Pickles, SMH)

Editor’s note: The Language on the Move team closely collaborates with the Law and Linguistics Interdisciplinary Researchers’ Network (LLIRN). To raise awareness of LLIRN and feature the research of its members, we are starting a new series about exciting new research in specific areas of language and law.

In this first post in the series, LLIRN founders and conveners Dr Alex Grey and Dr Laura Smith-Khan introduce the research of three early career researchers working on language, policing, and criminal justice.

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Alex Grey and Laura Smith-Khan

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The Law and Linguistics Interdisciplinary Researchers’ Network (LLIRN) came into being in 2019, after an initial symposium involving a group of academics and students, mainly from Australian universities, whose research is interested in the various intersections of language and law. One of our key goals of the symposium was to learn more about each other’s work and create new opportunities to collaborate.

Since then, LLIRN has grown and we have organized and run a number of different initiatives, including multiple panels at conferences across both linguistics and law, a special issue that showcased the work of several of our (mainly early career) members, and a lively and growing mailing list.

Fast forward to 2024, our Listserv now includes members from at least 37 different countries, at diverse stages of their careers, working as academics, as language or legal professionals, and/or in policy or decision-making roles. However, as LLIRN convenors, we have felt that we still have much to learn about the members who make up the network, the expertise they have and their goals. This new blog series intends to address this gap: we want to learn (or “LLIRN”) more about each other, and to make our learning public so that others too can learn more about us.

Northern Territory Supreme Court (Image credit: Dietmar Rabich, Wikipedia)

In the first of this new series, we showcase LLIRN members, Alex Bowen, Dr Fabio Ferraz de Almeida, and Dr Kate Steel, who are working in areas related to language, policing, and criminal justice.

Alex Bowen, University of Melbourne, Australia

Alex Bowen’s in-progress PhD looks at communication about criminal law and justice with Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory (NT) of Australia. His earlier research was about how police in the NT explain the right to silence in police interviews, producing the publications listed below.  He has previously practised criminal and commercial law.

Alex Bowen is interested more broadly in police interviewing, language in legal processes, interpreting and translation, how we understand and talk about law and justice interculturally, and how legal language is influenced by monolingual and colonial assumptions. He is interested in discussing these topics, especially with Indigenous scholars and practitioners, and developing interdisciplinary and intercultural resources for training and education. He may be available for peer review related to the above topics.

Recent publications

Bowen, A. (2019). ‘You don’t have to say anything’: Modality and consequences in conversations about the right to silence in the Northern Territory. Australian Journal of Linguistics, 39(3), 347–374.
Bowen, A. (2021). Explaining the right to silence under Anunga: 40 years of a policy about language. Griffith Law Review, 30(1), 18–49.
Bowen, A. (2021). Intercultural translation of vague legal language: The right to silence in the Northern Territory of Australia. Target. International Journal of Translation Studies, 33(2), 308–340.
Bowen, A. (2021). “What you’ve got is a right to silence”: Paraphrasing the right to silence and the meaning of rights. International Journal of Speech Language and the Law, 28(1), 1–29.

Dr Fabio Ferraz de Almeida, University of Lincoln, UK

Dr Fabio Ferraz de Almeida has experience conducting ethnographic and conversation analytic research in police and judicial settings. This has included research on police interviews with suspects in the UK, criminal hearings in Brazil and, more recently, International Criminal Court (ICC) trials, producing the publications listed below. He is currently working on a paper about the role of judges in witness examination at the ICC, focusing particularly on the tensions associated with their dual-role as both referee and truth-finder.  He lectures in Criminology.

International Criminal Court, The Hague (Image Credit: Wikipedia)

Dr Ferraz de Almeida is broadly interested in studying social interactions in any form of police or legal context and welcomes contact from researchers with similar interests.

Recent publications

Ferraz de Almeida, F., & Drew, P. (2020). The fabric of law-in-action: ‘formulating’ the suspect’s account during police interviews in England. International Journal of Speech Language and the Law, 27(1), 35-58.
Ferraz de Almeida, F. (2022). Two ways of spilling drink: The construction of offences as ‘accidental’ in police interviews with suspects. Discourse Studies, 24(2), 187-205.
D’hondt, S., Perez-Leon-Acevedo, J. P., Ferraz de Almeida, F., & Barrett, E. (2022). Evidence about Harm: Dual Status Victim Participant Testimony at the International Criminal Court and the Straitjacketing of Narratives about Suffering. Criminal Law Forum, 33, 191.
D’hondt, S., Pérez-León-Acevedo, J. P., Ferraz de Almeida, F., & Barrett, E. (2024). Trajectories of spirituality: Producing and assessing cultural evidence at the International Criminal Court. Language in Society, 1-22.
Ferraz de Almeida, F. (2024). Counter-Denunciations: How Suspects Blame Victims in Police Interviews for Low-Level Crimes. International Journal for the Semiotics of Law, 37, 119–137.

Dr Kate Steel, University of the West of England (UWE), Bristol, UK

Dr Kate Steel’s PhD (2022) and continuing research explore interactions ‘at the scene’ between police first responders and victims of domestic abuse, producing the publication below. This work draws from police body-worn video footage within one force area in the England & Wales jurisdiction of the United Kingdom. This research responds to the typical simplification of the crucial role of communication at the scene is and its under-emphasis in official procedure for the first response to domestic abuse, at both local and national levels.

Dr Kate Steel is now working with another police force to develop language guidance specific to the policing context of domestic abuse first response.  She lectures in linguistics.

Recent publications

Aldridge, M., & Steel, K. (2022). The role of metaphor in police first response call-outs in cases of suspected domestic abuse. In I. Šeškauskienė (Ed.), Metaphor in Legal Discourse (224-241). Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Available from https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/9900169
Steel, K. (2023) “Can I have a look?”: The discursive management of victims’ personal space during police first response call-outs to domestic abuse incidents. International Journal for the Semiotics of Law 37(2): 547-572.

What about you?

Do you work or research in an area related to criminal justice and language, or another area where language and law intersect? Join the LLIRN!

What other language and law topics would you like to learn about? Have your say on our next LLIRN “What’s new in language and law research?” blog post. Let us know in the comments or join the network and send us an email!

Upcoming events of interest in this area

Dr Fabio Ferraz de Almeida and Dr Kate Steel will both be presenting their research in the coming months, including at the IAFLL European conference in Birmingham. Dr Fabio Ferraz de Almeida will also present at the Forensic Conversations in Criminal Justice Settings Symposium in Loughborough in September.