The impact of English on law in Southeast Asia

Abstract

Abstract Southeast Asia includes one polity where English is the sole official medium of law, six where it is admissible to a greater or lesser extent alongside other languages, and four others where it has no official role but is increasingly important in areas such as commercial practice and legal education. Beyond national judicial systems, it has currency in private practice and community law. This diversity challenges monolithic conceptions of English-medium law and offers evidence of indigenization. However, legal and technical factors inhibiting linguistic change in law are reinforced by economic factors spreading the language unevenly through Southeast Asian populations. As a result, the use of English in law is often a mark of the elitist nature of legal practice. But it is a dynamic elitism, and those leveraging their English skills into lucrative or influential legal positions today are not necessarily the descendants of traditional English-using legal classes.