ABSTRACT
This chapter wraps things up, summarizing briefly, and offers a few thoughts about the future of the small but rich and incredibly fascinating sub-field of linguistics and law. Growth in public awareness of linguistics and in the law world’s greater appreciation of the relevance of linguistics to legal questions warrants guarded optimism about the future of the field. For the intended audience of this book, students with an interest in linguistics and also in law, the best preparation for a career in the field is graduate study in linguistics; linguistics and law is the application of linguistics to legal issues, not the other way around. Legal training would be a bonus, but most linguistics and law practitioners are linguists, and only a minority have legal training as well.
