Drawing on representative corpora of transcripts from over 100 English
criminal jury trials, this stimulating new book explores the nature of
'legal-lay discourse', or the language used by legal professionals
before lay juries. Careful analyses of genres such as witness
examination and the judge's summing-up reveal a strategic tension
between a desire to persuade the jury and the need to conform to legal
constraints. The book also suggests ways of managing this tension
linguistically to help, not hinder, the jury.