The language of young people in legal settings: perceptions, preconceptions and misconceptions

It is no secret that the language of the courtroom can be incomprehensible and impregnable for many who are unacquainted with legalese and the formal jargon of the courts. Considering the significance of the decisions that are taken in that environment, it is crucial that everyone involved in the proceedings understands what is being communicated and can follow what is going on. This becomes even more acute in cases involving young people, not only because of the challenges they might face with trying to understand the ritualistic language of law and the court, but also to make themselves understood and to speak in a fashion which is expected in that particular context.

Experts are already consulted by detectives and lawyers to seek their assistance with adequately understanding the 'complexity of inner-city dialects and the growing use of texts and social media posts in court evidence' according to The Guardian Social Affairs Correspondent, Robert Booth. Similarly, there have been a number of cases where online resources such as the crowd-sourced Urban Dictionary have been consulted to verify the meaning of slang words which are pivotal to the proceedings, for example 'shizzle my nizzle' in the UK High Court in 2003 and 'to jack' in the case State of Wisconsin vs Devante J. Lumpkins. Language and communication does feature in official court documentation, for example the 2017 Youth Court Bench Book published by the Judicial College advises the court to use 'plain language and at a level the child or young person can understand'. There has even been cross-national and cross-linguistic comparisons of the amount of effort the court takes in order to ensure that young people sufficiently understand what is happening (Persson 2017).

However, the issue is only about comprehension but also perception. The HMCS Youth Justice Board has included advice on how the young people should speak in this environment. In the section on Presentation in Court: 'The young person and their parents/ carers should be advised of the importance of: speaking clearly and with sufficient volume when addressing the judiciary; avoiding street language' (page 46). The last three words are interesting both from a youth justice angle and from a sociolinguistic perspective because it unearths so many questions: what specifically is 'street language'? If a young person is told not to speak in a way they are accustomed, how does this affect their statements? Would a speaker of 'street language' be judged differently because they use this spoken variety?

Investigating youth speech and widespread perceptions of young people's language practices are part of on-going research at MCYS. Rob Drummond at MCYS has undertaken research on youth language in a Pupil Referral Unit (PRU) (2018) and draws attentions to the work of forensic linguists (such as Tim Grant) who point out how conceivable it would be for a miscarriage of justice on account of misinterpreting the phrase ‘allow it’ which means ‘leave it, stop it, forget it’ in multicultural urban varieties of English. There has recently been a surge of research into language, (in)justice and (in)equality in legal contexts, most notably in the USA where, for example, the testimonies from speakers of African American English have been shown to be transcribed inaccurately by Court Reporters in more than 40% of the analysed cases (Taylor 2019). However, the extent of similar language-related discrepancies in UK legal institutions are currently under-researched and any potential resulting injustices would still remain largely invisible. Since this area of investigation is ready for further exploration, a project is currently underway at MCYS which examines perceptions of youth language in the courtroom and other legal settings. Starting off within the Greater Manchester region, the study will assess the extent to which varying perceptions of young people's speech potentially affects the evaluations of the speakers and to ascertain whether fundamental misunderstandings might arise from discrepancies in meaning according to how certain words and phrases are used. The implications are considerable since the judgements and rulings made by the gate-keepers and key decision-makers potentially have a huge impact on the lives of young people. It is therefore important to assess whether certain figures of authority harbour preconceptions of certain groups of young people based on features of speech and styles of spoken expression.