The Fourth International Conference on Law, Language and Discourse (LLD)
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The Fourth International Conference On Law, Language and Discourse (LLD) October 18 -19, 2014, Xi'an, China The American Scholars Press Editors: Le Cheng, Qinglin Ma, Jinbang Du, Lisa Hale, et al. Cover Designer: Jian Li Published by The American Scholars Press, Inc. The Fourth International Conference on Law, Language and Discourse is published by the American Scholars Press, Inc., Marietta, Georgia, USA. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher. Copyright © 2014 by the American Scholars Press All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-0-9861817-0-2 Printed in the United States of America 2 Preface Internationally, there is a growing interest from the academia and the legal professionals in the study of the interface between language and law. Locally, Language and Law is one of the core postgraduate programs, which can be traced back to the early 1990s at City University of Hong Kong. In recent years, exchanges and collaborations in language and law among universities such as City University of Hong Kong, Aston University, China University of Political Science and Law, Columbia Law School, Georgetown University and Peking University, have been frequent and productive. With Hong Kong, as an international city, playing an important role of the meeting point for different cultures and with China being the convergence of various jurisdictions, a new association – the Multicultural Association of Law and Language (hereafter as MALL) was founded in 2009 with the Secretariat located in Hong Kong. The MALL aims to provide a platform for scholars from different jurisdictions and cultures to exchange views on the interface between law and language, with a specific focus on the interdisciplinary and multicultural nature of law, language and discourse. Affiliated with the MALL, there is an international journal: International Journal of Law, Language & Discourse (www.ijlld.com), and two international conferences: International Conference on Law, Language and Discourse, and International Conference on Law, Translation and Culture. The Founding President is King Kui Sin (formerly City University of Hong Kong), who has served on the Bilingual Laws Advisory Committee of Hong Kong and has been appointed MBE (Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire) by the British Government for his contribution to the translation of Hong Kong laws into Chinese. The MALL consists of the following important members: President King Kui Sin, Hang Seng Management College, Hong Kong; Secretary General Dr. Le Cheng, Zhejiang University, China; Vice Presidents Dr. Le Cheng, Zhejiang University, China; Professor Craig Hoffman, Georgetown University Law Center, USA; Professor Lijin Sha, China University of Political Science and Law, China; Professor Joseph-G. Turi, International Academy of Linguistic Law, Canada, and Professor Anne Wagner, Université du Littoral Côte d’Opale, France. On October 18, 2014, the Fourth International Conference on Law, Language and Discourse and the Eighth Conference of China Association of Forensic Linguistics (CAFL), organized by CAFL and the Multicultural Association of Law and Language (Hong Kong) and hosted by Northwest University of Politics and Law (NWUPL), were successfully held in Xi’an, China. More than 150 participants from over 50 Chinese universities and over 10 countries and regions attended this important forensic linguistics event. A total of 154 abstracts, 58 in English and 96 in Chinese, and 108 full papers on various topics were received from the conference attendees. Twenty-eight peer-reviewed papers have been selected for the publication in this proceeding. The main theme of this conference was “Diversity and Integrity”, which was divided into the following 10 topics: Theory and Application of Forensic Linguistics; Language in the Courtroom; Linguistic Evidence; Legal Translation and Interpreting; Analysis of Legal Documents; Authorship Attribution; Functional Linguistics; Legal Discourse and Corpus; Law and Philosophy; and History of Legal Culture. The opening ceremony was presided over by Professor Ma Qinglin, Vice President of CAFL and Dean of the NWUPL School of Foreign Languages. Professor Jia Yu, President of Northwest University of Political Science & Law, Professor Du Jinbang, President of CAFL, and Professor Cheng Le, Vice 3 President of Multicultural Association of Law & Language, delivered their opening speeches at the ceremony. “Both the law and language share the same root and grow up together, although they belong to different fields. The only way for judges and lawyers to acquire and use their professional knowledge is via legal language, and the mission of forensic linguistics is to study the relationship between language and law, their features, rules and application, and the various aspects of legislation, judicature and enforcement,” Professor Jia Yu pointed out. “As a brand new discipline, forensic linguistics is playing an increasingly important role in the politics, economy, culture and life of the international community,” Professor Du Jinbang stated in his opening speech. This is the very first time for the two Associations to jointly convene an international conference in China, and the collaboration itself is a good example of the prosperous development in forensic linguistics in China, as well as the milestone of strengthening the exchange and cooperation at home and abroad,” declared Professor Cheng Le. Professor Edward Finegan, President of the International Association of Forensic Linguists, sent his congratulations on the successful opening of this conference on behalf of IAFL. Four keynote speeches were delivered at this conference. Professor Wang Shirong, Vice President of NWUPL, delivered the first keynote speech, in which he analyzed the linguistic features of the traditional legal culture in the judgments of the Qing Dynasty kept in the Archive Office of Ziyang County, Shanxi Province. The second key note speech was given by Professor Emerita Susan Sarcevic of the University of Rijeka, Croatia, a famous scholar in the field of legal translation. She put forward her view on the feasibility of building a common legal language on the basis of the paradox of EU Multilingualism. The next speech was presented by Professor Cheng Le from Zhejiang University. He illustrated the epistemic modality in civil judgments in light of his Hong Kong SAR and Scotland corpus. Professor Du Jinbang of Guangdong University of Foreign Studies analyzed the experimental design procedures, factors as well as the feasibility of authorship attribution from the DIA-based approach in his keynote speech. In plenary speeches, Dr. Sol Azuelos-Atias from the University of Haifa, Israel presented her speech “Identifying the Meanings Hidden in Legal Texts: The Three Conditions of Relevance Theory and their Sufficiency”; Professor Wang Zhenhua from Shanghai Jiaotong University delivered his presentation “Analysis of Engagement Resources and Alignment in Statements of Defense in Chinese Criminal Trials”; Professor Wang Jie from China University of Political Science and Law gave her speech “On the Rural Culture of the Rule of Law in China – the Mediation System and Language in the Countryside”; Professor Zhang Qing from China University of Political Science and Law presented her findings on the Modality in American and Chinese Criminal Judgments from the perspective of comparative study; Professor Pan Qingyun from East China University of Political Science and Law shared his view on the Current Research of Forensic Linguistics in Australia and its Enlightenment; Professor Liu Suzhen of NWUPL discussed her reflections on the Three Elements in the Research of the History of Forensic Linguistics; and Professor Zhang Jingyu from Shanxi Normal University analyzed the Power and Sex in Rape Acknowledgment and Identification in China. The closing ceremony was held on October 19, 2014 and was chaired by Professor Liu Weiming, Vice President of CAFL and Vice Dean of the NWUPL School of Foreign Languages. Professor Yuan Chuanyou, Vice President of CAFL, and Professor Cheng Le, Deputy President of the Multicultural Association of Law & Language, made their respective summary remarks on the success and efficient organization of the conference. They commented, “the conference was quite successful in the communication between the participants at home and abroad, and played a role of inheriting the past and 4 forging ahead into the future.” In his concluding remarks, Professor Ma Qinglin, Dean of the NWUPL School of Foreign Languages, remarked: “This conference has provided a platform of grand gathering for the participants, both home and abroad, in the fields of forensic linguistic and law and demonstrated a promising future, but there is still a long way to go.” In his view, multilevel research and multi- disciplinary cooperation are in urgent need. To sum up, this conference has played a significant role in promoting communication and academic exchange in the field of forensic linguistics, understanding the mainstream research of the discipline, and strengthening international cooperation and collaboration. If you are interested in hosting the two conferences or guest-editing a special issue with the journal, please kindly contact Le Cheng ([email protected]). Le Cheng, PhD Professor of Legal Discourse and Translation, School of International Studies Professor of Law,