One conversational maxim in the courtroom: 'avoid ambiguity'

by JLS
for the GC

An abstract from

http://web.bham.ac.uk/forensic/IAFL03/abstracts.html

Sanford SCHANE, "Ambiguity and Misunderstanding in the Law."

"I shall analyze three American court cases

claimed to contain "ambiguity" or "ambiguous words"."

"Paradoxically enough, the word ambiguity itself has

more than one interpretation."

"One of the senses, what I call the general meaning, is

concerned with uncertainty about the application of a term or lack of clarity."

"It is this sense of ambiguity that generally is meant within the law."

"The other meaning, as a technical term within linguistics, deals with certain lexical and grammatical properties that are part of the very fabric of language."

"For the three court cases to be examined, the claims of "ambiguity" are appropriate for the general meaning, but only one of the cases (Frigaliment) exemplifies the linguist's meaning of ambiguity."

"The other two (Raffles and ICC) present problems of reference and of vagueness , respectively."

"I shall discuss these differences of misunderstanding, why these distinctions are important in the law, and the role they played in how the cases were decided."

("University of California, San Diego").