General Course Information
1.1 Course details
| Course code: | LLAW3190 / LALS3003 |
| Course name: | Language and the Law |
| Programme offered under: | LLB Programme |
| Semester: | First |
| Designated research course: | Not applicable |
| Specialization: | Not applicable |
| Prerequisites / Co-requisites: | No |
| Course offered to non-law students: | No |
| Credit point value: | 6 credits |
1.2 Course description
Language, the course shows, plays an essential role both in creating law (e.g. in how specific laws are drafted) and in governing its implementation (e.g. in how language is used – and also contested – in court). In examining how language plays these highly important social roles, the course addresses a wide range of topics, including the different registers and genres which give us our idea of what legal language is; the varieties of language, and communicative strategies, used in the courtroom by speakers fulfilling different roles (judge, barrister, defendant, witness, etc.); how language is deployed and understood in technical ways in legal drafting and interpretation; the use of language data as a specialised kind of evidence submitted in court cases; challenges presented to our notions of law and regulation by new forms of online communication; and linguistic and legal issues that arise in bilingual and multilingual jurisdictions (i.e. in systems that formulate and apply their law in two or more different languages).
1.3 Course teachers
| Name | E-mail address | Office | Consultation | |
| Course convenor | Janny Leung | jannyleung@hku.hk | RRST 836 | By email |
Learning Outcomes
2.1 Course Learning Outcomes (CLOs) for this course
CLO 1 Describe the texture of legal language and understand scholarly investigations of it.
CLO 2 Apply linguistic knowledge in the analysis of legal discourse in a range of legal and critical settings.
CLO 3 Identify and explain central issues in the emerging disciplines of law and language and forensic linguistics.
CLO 4 Show critical awareness of the interconnectedness of many linguistic and legal questions, as well as of the disciplines of legal and linguistic study.
CLO 5 Demonstrate an understanding of the scope and concerns of linguistics and law as disciplines and develop practical and critical skills that help to analyse problems outside established disciplinary boundaries.
2.2 LLB Programme Learning Outcomes (PLOs)
Please refer to the following link: https://course.law.hku.hk/llb-plo/
2.3 Programme Learning Outcomes to be achieved in this course
| PLO A | PLO B | PLO C | PLO D | PLO E | PLO F | |
| CLO 1 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| CLO 2 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| CLO 3 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| CLO 4 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| CLO 5 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Assessment(s)
3.1 Assessment Summary
| Assessment task | Weighting | Feedback method* | Course learning outcomes |
| Participation | 20% | 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 | |
| Problem-based tasks | 40% | 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 | |
| In-class final test | 40% | 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 |
| *Feedback method (to be determined by course teacher) | |
| 1 | A general course report to be disseminated through Moodle |
| 2 | Individual feedback to be disseminated by email / through Moodle |
| 3 | Individual review meeting upon appointment |
| 4 | Group review meeting |
| 5 | In-class verbal feedback |
3.2 Assessment Detail
To be advised by course convenor(s).
3.3 Grading Criteria
Please refer to the following link: https://www.law.hku.hk/_files/law_programme_grade_descriptors.pdf
Learning Activities
4.1 Learning Activity Plan
| Seminar | 3 hours / week for 12 teaching weeks |
| Private study time: | 9.5 hours / week for 12 teaching weeks |
Remarks: the normative student study load per credit unit is 25 ± 5 hours (ie. 150 ± 30 hours for a 6-credit course), which includes all learning activities and experiences within and outside of classroom, and any assessment task and examinations and associated preparations.
4.2 Details of Learning Activities
To be advised by course convenor(s).
Learning Resources
5.1 Resources
| Reading materials: | Reading materials are posted on Moodle |
| Core reading list: | TBA |
| Recommended reading list: | TBA |
5.2 Links
Please refer to the following link: http://www.law.hku.hk/course/learning-resources/