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The English Language on Trial: Witnessing Disputed Meanings in American Courts

The English Language on Trial: Witnessing Disputed Meanings in American Courts

Name: The English Language on Trial: Witnessing Disputed Meanings in American Courts
Brand: Cambridge University Press
SKU: 9781009682787
Price: 1324.05 HKD
Availability: InStock
Author: John A. Hawkins
ISBN: 9781009682787

By John A. Hawkins

Cambridge University Press March 2026

Specifications

ISBN-13: 9781009682787
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Publication: March 2026
Format: Hardback
Jurisdiction: U.K. ? Countri(es) for reference only

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Paperback

Details

Many lawsuits arise over disagreements about language and about the meanings of everyday words, phrases, and sentences. This book draws on over fifty cases involving disputed meanings in the American legal system where the author served as an expert witness or consultant, to explore the interaction between language and law.

Stepping back from the legal specifics and their outcomes, it analyzes the disputes from the perspective of the language sciences, especially semantics and pragmatics, and language comprehension. It seeks to understand why, and in what areas of English grammar, lexis, and usage, they have arisen among speakers who do not normally miscommunicate and disagree like this.

The cases involve contracts, patents, advertising, trademarks, libel, and defamation, and descriptive insights and methods from the language sciences are applied to each case to make explicit the meanings that speakers would normally assign to English.

1. Introduction: creating meanings in everyday language use

2. Disputes over individual words

3. Disputes over word combinations

4. Disputes over whole clauses

5. Disputes over inferences

6. Disputes over reference and unique identification

7. Disputes over spelling and punctuation#

8. Conclusions

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