THE JUDGE AS A LINGUIST: THE LINGUISTIC ASPECT OF LEGAL ACTIVITY                                                   (AS EXEMPLIFIED IN THE RUSSIAN AND ENGLISH LANGUAGES)               

Dubrovskaya Tatyana Viktorovna, Candidate of philological sciences, associate professor, sub-department of philology, International Independent University of Environmental and Political Sciences (affiliated branch in Penza), dubrovskaya@sura.ru

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In the present article the structure of the judge’s identity and one of its sides, judge as a linguist, is analysed. The author classifies situations which require Russian and English judges’ particular attention to language, and discovers typical disputable and debatable linguistic aspects in the course of trials. The tasks set before a judge as a linguist include correct interpretation of legal texts and other documents, utterances of trial participants, appointing linguistic experts’ examination. This side of judges’ activity presupposes focusing on various aspects of language: semantics of words and word combinations, situational and linguistic context, grammar, text structure. 

judge, linguist, courtroom communication, Russian, English.