Did he understand his rights? Assessing the comprehensibility of police cautions in New Zealand

Authors

  • Bronwen Innes University of Auckland
  • Rosemary Erlam University of Auckland

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1558/ijsll.32748

Keywords:

Legal language, legal rights, second language learners, listening comprehension, reading comprehension

Abstract

The authors' experience in conducting English language proficiency tests for second language speakers of English facing police charges has shown that some have limited understanding of their legal rights. The research study reported here comments on the complexity of the rights information presented by police to a range of participants. It investigates comprehension of that information by performing listening and reading comprehension tests with the participants. The results indicate a number of difficulties and a significant difference in the scores of first and second language speakers of English. This article outlines the tests performed and the results for both first and second language speakers, as well as discussing the complexity of the questions found difficult by participants. The results reinforce the need to ask whether people are being given their rights if they cannot understand them.

Author Biographies

  • Bronwen Innes, University of Auckland
    Bronwen Innes practises as a forensic linguist and is an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Auckland. She also does editing and plain language training, as well as having taught linguistics at university level and English at secondary school. Her current research interests are the language of judges' summings- up to juries and the comprehensibility of legal rights information given by police to detainees.
  • Rosemary Erlam, University of Auckland
    Rosemary Erlam is Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Education at the University of Auckland. She has a background as a speech-language therapist and experience working with adults with communication disorders. She has also taught French. Her research interests include language teacher education, second language acquisition, focus on form and language assessment.

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Published

2018-09-10

Issue

Section

Articles

How to Cite

Innes, B., & Erlam, R. (2018). Did he understand his rights? Assessing the comprehensibility of police cautions in New Zealand. International Journal of Speech, Language and the Law, 25(1), 21-51. https://doi.org/10.1558/ijsll.32748