By David Wright1, Helen Murray-Edwards2, Jeremy Robson2, Natalie Braber1
1School of Arts and Humanities, Nottingham Trent University
2Leicester De Montfort Law School
“Eighteen of Mr Tangle’s learned friends, each armed with a little summary of eighteen hundred sheets, bob up like eighteen hammers in a piano-forte, make eighteen bows, and drop into their eighteen places of obscurity.”
It is nearly 170 years since Charles Dickens mocked the pomposity of legal proceedings in Bleak House. However, even in the twenty-first century, courtrooms are environments rich with stylised rules of courtesy and behaviour which continue to perplex, confuse and bewilder those outside of the profession. Given the verbal gymnastics that goes on in the courtroom, the language of the court has long been a focus...
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