Legal Discourse Across Cultures and Systems

This book makes a major contribution to the study of legal discourse and to our understanding of variation in professional communication practices across cultures. An outcome of a major international research project, the volume contains a series of studies focusing on the language used in international commercial arbitration documents, presenting a range of analyses, insights and perspectives on legal language in such diverse contexts as Malaysia, Brazil, India, Japan, Finland, the UK and Iran. The editors and contributors have done an excellent job in weaving together the diverse threads of this complex topic and in presenting a multidisciplinary perspective on legal language and its socio-political and communicative consequences in both national and global contexts. I am sure that this valuable book will be widely read and be of great benefit to teachers, scholars and all those interested in legal discourse. -- Ken Hyland, Institute of Education, University of London