{"title":"Did he understand his rights? Assessing the comprehensibility of police cautions in New Zealand","authors":"Bronwen Innes, R. Erlam","doi":"10.1558/IJSLL.32748","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"The authors' experience in conducting English language proficiency tests for second language speakers of English facing police charges has shown that some have limited understanding of their legal rights. The research study reported here comments on the complexity of the rights information presented by police to a range of participants. It investigates comprehension of that information by performing listening and reading comprehension tests with the participants. The results indicate a number of difficulties and a significant difference in the scores of first and second language speakers of English. This article outlines the tests performed and the results for both first and second language speakers, as well as discussing the complexity of the questions found difficult by participants. The results reinforce the need to ask whether people are being given their rights if they cannot understand them.","PeriodicalId":43843,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Speech Language and the Law","volume":"25 1","pages":"21-51"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5000,"publicationDate":"2018-08-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"8","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"International Journal of Speech Language and the Law","FirstCategoryId":"98","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1558/IJSLL.32748","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q4","JCRName":"CRIMINOLOGY & PENOLOGY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 8
Abstract
The authors' experience in conducting English language proficiency tests for second language speakers of English facing police charges has shown that some have limited understanding of their legal rights. The research study reported here comments on the complexity of the rights information presented by police to a range of participants. It investigates comprehension of that information by performing listening and reading comprehension tests with the participants. The results indicate a number of difficulties and a significant difference in the scores of first and second language speakers of English. This article outlines the tests performed and the results for both first and second language speakers, as well as discussing the complexity of the questions found difficult by participants. The results reinforce the need to ask whether people are being given their rights if they cannot understand them.
期刊介绍:
The International Journal of Speech, Language and the Law is a peer-reviewed journal that publishes articles on any aspect of forensic language, speech and audio analysis. Founded in 1994 as Forensic Linguistics, the journal changed to its present title in 2003 to reflect a broadening of academic coverage and readership. Subscription to the journal is included in membership of the International Association of Forensic Linguists and the International Association for Forensic Phonetics and Acoustics.