scholarly journals Can Trauma be Told? Juridical Discourse and Affect in Vanessa Place’s Statement of Facts

Author(s):  
Francis Haselden

A poet and an appellate criminal defence attorney specialising in sex crimes, Vanessa Place reproduces the evidence of rape crimes presented during trials in Statement of Facts (2010). At the heart of these trials lies a trauma that legal language seeks to convey. Drawing on Jean-François Lyotard’s concepts of the differend (différend) and litigation, I ask if the documentary poem represents the traumatic event or if it simply reproduces legal language. I propose that the discourse of the law fails to account for trauma because of a mismatch between the forms of language required to establish facts in a court of law and the traumatic event itself. Yet, the transformation of this language into a poem makes it possible to indicate this mismatch while at the same time bringing the unspeakable violence of the traumatic experience to the surface of the text as read by the poet.

Pólemos ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Matteo Nicolini

Abstract This essay addresses different patterns of the visualisation of the law. It examines how scholars attempt to depict, represent, and perform the law and its founding authority. It also focuses on the pragmatics of legal language: written and spoken standard legal English are pragmatically enriched within contexts where the law is interpreted, uttered, or performed. The linguistic notion of “context” discloses the interrelations between the agendas of law and power and reveals how the law conveys its content to the body politic as its ultimate addressee. It then proposes a renewed concept of legal linguistics. In order to determine the different ideologies underpinning the evolution of English legal language, as well as its prototypical forms of the visualisation of the law, three stages in the history of the English language will be examined: Late Middle English, Early Modern English, and Contemporary English. Each of these stages will be likened to the different parts of judicial proceedings. This will allow us to examine how English legal language has been used in a specific context, the trial, where the law is both uttered and performed.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
pp. 45-71
Author(s):  
Natalia Zych

The article examines the idea of plain legal language as a standard in creating comprehensible and effective communication in legislative acts. It features plain legal language techniques and tools used to tackle the visual and linguistic layer of legal texts. Selected techniques were implemented to experimentally modify the Polish Consumer Rights Act of 30 May 2014. The document, transformed in the spirit of plain legal language, was then submitted for assessment to lawyers as well as individuals with no legal background. The article features the results of the experiment as well as conclusions which make it possible to say whether the “simplified” act is more comprehensible to an average reader, and to assess the cost of the changes introduced in the original provisions of the law.


Psichologija ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 35 ◽  
pp. 7-18
Author(s):  
Evaldas Kazlauskas ◽  
Irma Šimėnaitė ◽  
Danutė Gailienė

Potrauminis augimas yra teigiami psichologiniai padariniai po traumos, kurie pasireiškia savęs suvokimo, požiūrio į pasaulį ir tarpasmeninių santykių pokyčiais (Tedeschi and Calhoun, 1996). Pozityvūs procesai po traumos dar tik pradedami tyrinėti, todėl nėra žinoma, kokios yra potrauminio augimo (PTA), trauminio įvykio intensyvumo ir potrauminio streso sutrikimo (PTSS) sąsajos. Siekiant įvertinti ryšius tarp trauminės patirties ir PTSS bei PTA, buvo ištirti 104 studentiško amžiaus jaunuoliai, per savo gyvenimą patyrę bent vieną trauminį įvykį. Tako analizės modelis parodė, kad subjektyvus trauminės patirties intensyvumasyra veiksnys, reikšmingai prognozuojantis tiek PTSS, tiek PTA. Kuo reakcija į trauminį įvykį yra stipresnė, tuo labiau išreikšti PTSS ir PTA požymiai. Nustatytas nestiprus teigiamas ryšys tarp PTSS ir PTA parodė, kad, norėdami geriau suprasti, kaip jaučiasi asmenys po traumos, turime atsižvelgti ir į teigiamus (PTA), ir į neigiamus (PTSS) traumos padarinius. Pagrindiniai žodžiai: trauma, potrauminis stresas, potrauminis augimas.RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN TRAUMA EXPOSURE, POSTTRAUMATIC GROWTH AND POSTTRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDEREvaldas Kazlauskas, Irma Šimėnaitė, Danutė Gailienė SummaryObjectives: The notion that traumatic experiences may have an impact on human mind is very old. Recent developments in psychotraumatology shifted the approach to a trauma from a purely negative to a more positive perspective. Research confirmed that traumatic events may lead not only to posttraumatic stress or other disorders, but also to positive changes. The present research was based on the concept of Posttraumatic Growth developed by Calhoun and Tedeschi (1996), which is widely known in the field of traumatic stress. Although the number of Posttraumatic Growth (PTG) research is growing rapidly, little is known about Posttraumatic Growth predictors. The present research was designed to find out the links between Posttraumatic Growth, Posttraumatic Stress and initial reactions to the traumatic event. We set up two goals of the study: 1) evaluation of how initial traumatic reactions predict PTG, and 2) assessment of links between PTG and PTSD.Methods: A group of 104 university students exposed to at least one life-time traumatic event participated in the study. The average time gap between exposure to a traumatic event and the time of research was 43 months. The intensity of initial reactions to a traumatic event was measured using a 10-item selfrating inventory developed by the authors of the present study. The Subjective Traumatic Experience (STE) inventory consisted of items covering cognitive, emotional and physiological reactions to a traumatic event. Posttraumatic Growth was measured using the Posttraumatic Growth Inventory (PGI) developed by Tedeschi and Calhoun (1996). Previous research showed satisfactory psychometric properties of the Lithuanian version of PGI (Gailienë & Kazlauskas, 2005). Posttraumatic Stress Disorder was measured using the Lithuanian version of Impact of Event Scale – Revised (IES-R). A recent validation of the IES-R on Lithuanian population showed its good psychometric properties (Kazlauskas et al., 2006).


Author(s):  
Elza-Bair M. Guchinova ◽  

Introduction. This publication is devoted to the issues of deportation of the Kalmyk people to Siberia (1943–1956) and the memories that the individuals have of their traumatic experience of the exile period. It consists of an introduction, two interviews, and comments on them. The narratives belong to Kalmyks who were of preschool age at the time of Siberian exile. The purpose of the publication is to focus on “children of Siberia” as a separate generational stratum, with their own specific experiences and loyalties; Siberian villages, sites of their socialization, becoming their homeland. Of relevance are the facts that contribute to the mosaic of the Siberian life of Kalmyks and the stories shedding light on the feelings and experiences of children growing up in Siberia. Also, the author was interested in analyzing the expressions and verbal formulas, plots and associations that create the protagonists’ spontaneous narratives, and the ways the language of trauma, which arises in any narrative of the traumatic event, is used in the material under study. Data and methods. The interviews were taken by the author from V. I. Badmaev (2008) and from A. N. Ovshinov (2018); presented in the form of transcribed texts, these are examined via the method of discourse analysis. Results. The discursive strategies of the two narratives indicate their largely positive character. The author shows that, for their specific exile experience, the “children of Siberia” should be singled out into a separate generational stratum. The material will be of interest to the student of the Kalmyk deportation history and the people’s memory of the exile.


2018 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 104-118
Author(s):  
Patrick Zuk

This essay explores ways in which musicologists might extend work undertaken by humanities scholars in the interdisciplinary field of trauma studies that has highlighted the centrality of traumatic experience to modernist creativity. It is focussed around a case study of a musical composition that represents the emotional aftermath of a traumatic event, the Sixth Symphony of the Soviet composer Nikolay Myaskovsky (1923). A central concern is to demonstrate how the symphony’s musical symbolism is strikingly evocative of typical features of post-traumatic mentation, such as dissociation and emotional numbing, and the inhibition of the ability to mourn. It closes by considering the potential implications of the findings for understanding work by other modernist composers.


2013 ◽  
Vol 41 (4) ◽  
pp. 859-871 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer A. Chandler ◽  
Alexandra Mogyoros ◽  
Tristana Martin Rubio ◽  
Eric Racine

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a “young” disorder formally recognized in the early 1980s, although the symptoms have been noted for centuries particularly in relation to military conflicts. PTSD may develop after a serious traumatic experience that induces feelings of intense fear, helplessness or horror. It is currently characterized by three key classes of symptoms which must cause clinically significant distress or impairment of functioning: (1) persistent and distressing re-experiencing of the trauma; (2) persistent avoidance of stimuli associated with the trauma and numbing of general responsiveness; and (3) persistent symptoms of hyper-arousal. One of the possible symptoms within the second class is difficulty in remembering an important aspect of the traumatic event.PTSD is not an uncommon condition, with an estimated lifetime prevalence of about 7-9% based on studies conducted in the United States and Canada, with women at higher risk than men. While not everyone who experiences a significant trauma will go on to develop PTSD, about a third will do so. Sexual assault, along with other forms of assaultive violence, pose a comparatively high risk of PTSD.


Humaniora ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 97
Author(s):  
Shidarta Shidarta

Legal language must follow the laws of language (grammar) that widely known and commonly used by the public, including groups of the scientist. Legal language on the other hand also recognizes specific terminologies. These terminologies were introduced by jurists or by legislative power holders. Accordingly, legal language became the product of legal doctrines or political decisions. The problems arose when a number of compositions and legal terms turned out to be elusive, convoluted, and ambiguous due to the pattern of writing that was once done and because of certain considerations. This article proposed reviewing the factors that result in problems. The author presented a solution to observe using hermeneutic methods of law and legal reasoning. The author argued that the text of the law was not neutral since it was trapped not only by the laws of language but also by the perspective of the interpreters as they believed such a perspective was based on the guidance of legal science. By using legal hermeneutics can be checked the depth of the meaning of the law; while over the legal reasoning can be seen its rationale according to legal science.


Author(s):  
A. N. Shepelyov

In the article, the author studies the problem of interaction between the legal language and other professional languages, using the language of psychiatry as an example. In this context particular attention is paid to the lawyer’s skills to manage conflict situations that appear between the legal and other languages. The courtroom, in particular, presents a “conflict place”. The author poses a question: what happens when it is required of an expert-psychiatrist to give an opinion on criminal sanity of the accused? While modeling the possible further development, it becomes obvious, that there is a huge gap between the language of psychiatry and the legal language, which appears because of the contradictions between the natures of these two fields. In each mental and linguistic system, whether an academic discipline, a professional or informal language, there exist its own set of terms, its own structure, goals, social and cultural context. The author points out that the lawyer and the psychiatrist constantly deal with two conflicts: the conflict between their professional language and the reality, and the conflict between the psychiatry and the law as such. The article notes that the nature of such contradictions requires a special approach to each individual case and combination of the art of legal language and other languages.


2018 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ioannis Ziogas

According to Horace, Orpheus and Amphion were the first legislators. They forbade casual sex, gave rights to spouses, and inscribed laws on wood (Ars Poetica 396-401). Orpheus, who is both the model of the devoted husband and the founding father of pederasty, simultaneously establishes and challenges the institution of marriage. His myth acquires a deeply political dimension at Rome after the emperor Augustus introduced laws that encouraged marriage and criminalised adultery. In the Metamorphoses, Orpheus attempts to regulate desire and is subsequently executed by married or marriageable women. He is a figure of Ovid, the poet who spelled out the constitution of the rules of conduct within the domains of sexual attraction in his Art of Love and was punished for subverting the institution of marriage. This article focuses on Orpheus’ story of Myrrha in Ovid’s Metamorphoses and reads the tale against the background of Augustus’ marriage and adultery laws. The myth of Myrrha is rife with legal language and courtroom rhetoric that provocatively conflate incest with marriage.


2018 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 81
Author(s):  
Antonio Escandiel de Souza ◽  
Carla Rosane Da Silva Tavares Alves ◽  
Andrea Moser Keitel ◽  
Ana Luísa Moser Keitel
Keyword(s):  

Numa perspectiva interdisciplinar, tendo em vista a abordagem que envolve a ciência da linguagem e do Direito, este artigo discute resultados de um estudo sobre a simplificação da linguagem jurídica como forma de democratizar o acesso à Justiça, sob a visão dos profissionais do contexto jurídico de Cruz Alta – RS. O estudo justifica-se pelo fato de que há uma grande dificuldade por parte da sociedade na compreensão de expressões jurídicas, o que dificulta o acesso à Justiça. Os dados evidenciam um avanço na aceitação e no exercício da simplificação da linguagem jurídica, antes praticamente inaceitável pelos operadores do direito.PALAVRAS-CHAVE: Discurso. Simplificação. Democratização. Justiça. Poder.


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