EXPLANATORY STRATEGIES AS TOOLS EMPLOYED TO COMMUNICATE LEGAL KNOWLEDGE TO A LAY AUDIENCE IN THE JUDICIAL SETTING

Abstract

The article analyses the role of explanatory strategies employed to communicate legal knowledge to a lay audience in the judicial setting where the communicants are often asymmetrical. In a jury trial, the important role of the addressee makes it obligatory to identify discursive strategies that improve the interaction of professional and lay courtroom participants. The focus on the laypersons, their phenomenological experience and knowledge makes courtroom discourse dialogical, and intensifies its interactive characteristics. Clarity of courtroom discourse depends on the ability of a speaker to switch from the professional code to lay language, explain legal terms through lay concepts, recontextualize legal knowledge using a series of discursive tools.