Sociolinguistic investigations of inequality in the legal process

This talk will address the question: what can sociolinguistic research reveal about inequality in the legal process? In answering this question, I will draw on studies which show how talk is used to control, coerce or dominate participants in courtroom hearings. Moving beyond situated power relations, I will address two wider questions of sociolinguistic concern: what are the social consequences of these situated inequalities? how do language ideologies enable discursive practices within legal contexts which perpetuate social inequalities?