ABSTRACT
The chapters by Maley, Bhatia and others provide valuable insights into features of legal language; such analysis is not widely known among practising lawyers. However, I have responded here mainly to Harris' chapter ‘Ideological exchanges in British magistrates courts’ because she addresses a subject within my daily experience. I sit as a trial judge, determining questions of fact and law in applications made by workers who claim to have suffered personal injury, arising out of or in the course of employment. On occasions, a litigant appears in person. Workers and witnesses who give oral evidence are predominantly from lower socio-economic backgrounds. Many speak a first language other than English. Frequently their answers to counsel's questions (particularly in cross-examination) are brief and ostensibly compliant.
