ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the discourse that results when legal professionals interact with laypeople during court proceedings involving a jury. It shows that a tension between two different ways of talking about, and in fact conceptualising, what is going on in a trial. One uses genre features associated with crime narrative; the other uses resources associated with legal exposition and analysis. Articulated together, the two views produce a hybrid, 'complex genre'. The chapter identifies some features which are probably shared by most forms of legallay discourse, it would be very misleading to talk about 'trial language' as a category of discourse. In the context of jury trial, legal professionals have been taught to follow paradigmatic legal principles and procedures, and are well aware of the contribution an evidential point might make to their logic-based legal case. The chapter focuses on a number of general conclusions about the nature of legal-lay discourse.
