Upcoming events

Guided Tour of the Vienna Regional Court for Criminal Matters

4th July 2023 // 3pm // Vienna Regional Court for Criminal Matters, Landesgerichtsstraße 11, 1080 Vienna

In cooperation with the Austrian Association for Legal Linguistics (ÖGRL), we offer you the opportunity to visit the Vienna Regional Court for Criminal Matters and explore the impressive “Weihestätte” on the ground floor. Our tour will begin at the entrance area, where you will be welcomed by our guide. Throughout the tour, you will learn about the history of the courthouse and gain fascinating insights into the Austrian criminal justice system.

With Friedrich Forsthuber (President of the Vienna Regional Court for Criminal Matters) and Daniel Green (AALL, WU Vienna).

Panel discussion: Language, Law & Assisted Suicide

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27th January 2023 // 6pm // Juridicum, Faculty of Law (“Dachgeschoss”) 

Seit 1. Jänner 2022 besteht für Menschen mit einer schweren oder unheilbaren Erkrankung, die Möglichkeit, eine gültige Sterbeverfügung zu errichten und ihr Leben selbst oder mithilfe eines anderen Menschen zu beenden. Das Sterbeverfügungsgesetz – StVfG 2021 knüpft an die Durchführung der gesetzlich zulässigen Tötung verschiedene Voraussetzungen, die u.a. in Formulierungen wie sterbewillige Person, Hilfe leistende Person, dauerhafter, freier und selbstbestimmter Entschluss, wirksame Sterbeverfügung, wirtschaftliche Vorteile und lebensbeendende Maßnahmen, versprachlicht werden und normative Kraft entfalten. Sprache perspektiviert nicht nur das Leben, sondern auch das Sterben, und zuletzt den Umgang der Gesellschaft und des Rechtstaats mit schwerkranken und sterbenden Menschen. In dieser Podiumsdiskussion widmen wir uns den aktuellen Spannungsfeldern des Sterbehilfediskurses. Kann und soll die Rechtsordnung ein Recht auf das Sterben gewährleisten? Welche Rolle kommt der Sprachverwendung in der Gesetzgebung zu und welche Probleme ergeben sich für die Ärzteschaft, das Pflegepersonal und Angehörige.

With Daniel Green (AALL, Vienna University of Economics and Business), Eva Masel (AKH Wien, Medical University of Vienna), Christian Piska (AALL, University of Vienna), Friedrich Schröder (independent lawyer), Vanessa Baumgärtel (AALL, University of Vienna) and Lara Badrel-Din (AALL, University of Vienna).

ILLWS22: Legal Linguistics around the Globe

10th – 11th December 2022 

The fifth International Legal Linguistics Workshop (ILLWS22) of the Austrian Association for Legal Linguistics (AALL) is entitled Legal Linguistics around the Globe and will be held online on from 10th December to 11 December 2022 and is co-hosted by the AALL and the Department of African Language Studies, University of the Western Cape.

The AALL and the Department of African Language Studies of the University of the Western Cape are pleased to announce Fiona Van Wyk (Paarl Magistrates’ Court, South Africa) and Eldine Esterhuyse (Wynberg Magistrates’ Court, South Africa) as the keynote speakers of this year’s International Legal Linguistics Workshop.

Fiona Van Wyk (Court Intermediary for the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development)

Fiona Van Wyk has been a court intermediary with the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development for the past 16 years. After obtaining a BA(HDE) degree, (majoring in Afrikaans and Linguistics & English Language) from Rhodes University, she went on to teach languages in Secondary schools for 12 years. She obtained a BAHons (Psyc) degree and a certificate in Victim Empowerment from UNISA and put this knowledge to practice whilst working with people with mental disabilities at Cape Mental Health Society. The experience she gained suited her ideally for her current position as a court intermediary where she assists children and other vulnerable persons to testify in court. She is particularly interested in how children use language to express themselves when testifying and focusses on how their ‘meaning’ may become lost or misinterpreted by role players in court who do not share knowledge or understanding of the child’s form and level of linguistic expression.

Mrs Eldine Esterhuyse (Court Intermediary for the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development)

Mrs Eldine Esterhuyse has been a court intermediary with the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development for the past 6 years. She obtained a Social Work (Baccalaureus Artium) Degree in 2007 at the University of the Western Cape in Bellville. After obtaining her degree, she became employed at CAFDA (Cape Flats Development Association), a non-profit organisation in Grassy Park. She was employed at CAFDA as a fulltime statutory social worker who mainly rendered child protection services. In June 2010 she was selected as one of 200 young South Africans who were chosen to be interviewed by a reporter from the Mail and Guardian (200 Young South Africans: Civil Society – The Mail & Guardian ) and she was also granted the opportunity to dine with the France Ambassador (to South Africa) in Pretoria due to the selection. After 7 years of services at CAFDA, she was offered and accepted a permanent position as a Family Counsellor at the Office of the Family Advocate in Cape Town where she was employed for 2 years. Thereafter she was employed as a fulltime court intermediary at Wynberg Magistrate Court in 2016. The overall experience, training and skills she acquired since her first appointment as Social worker, led to her being passionate about her career and wanting to be a voice to the most vulnerable groups (children, the elderly and victims of abuse). Her qualification and overall experiences assisted her in being appointed as a suitable and qualified court intermediary who can be a voice and a conduit to Afrikaans- and English speaking victims and witnesses at all the different courts (District, Regional and High court). She always finds it interesting as to how each victim/witness expresses themselves and how family backgrounds, everyday socialisation and social media hugely impacts their way of expression when conveying their stories.  She does not regret her choice of  profession and always strives to serve the community to the best of her ability.

ILLWS22 will be entirely held online on Zoom. Speakers are asked to turn on their camera when speaking, as so are participants during the discussion.

Click here to open the programme. All times indicated in the programme are South African Standard Time (SAST).

Organising committee:

  • Daniel Green (AALL)
  • Zakeera Docrat (University of the Western Cape)

AALL2022: Frontiers in Legal Linguistics at WU (Vienna University of Economics and Business)

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25th November 2022 

The second conference of the Austrian Association for Legal Linguistics (AALL) is entitled
Frontiers in Legal Linguistics and will be held on 25.11.2022 at the Vienna
University of Economics and Business (Wirtschaftsuniversität Wien), co-hosted by the AALL
and the Institute of English Business Communication (WU).

You can find the programme of AALL2022 here.

The conference will cover a wide range of topics within the field of legal linguistics which may
include, but is not limited to, the following areas of research:

Law and language: Theoretical legal linguistics; applied legal linguistics; legal semiotics,
semantics and pragmatics; European legal linguistics; international business communication;
statutory interpretation; law and computer-mediated communication; courtroom interpreting and
legal translation; asylum procedure and human rights; sign language(s) and the legal system; the
philosophy of language and law; linguistic rights and minorities around the globe; gender in legal
language; law, language and sexual violence; research ethics in legal linguistics; historical legal
linguistics; corpus linguistics and the law; COVID-19 and medico-legal communication; neuro/
psycholinguistics and the law; legal and political discourse, arbitration and restorative justice.

Law and language in education: Legal language teaching in Europe; legal curricula
development; corpus linguistics and legal education; teaching law in the multilingual classroom;
multilingualism in legal contexts; legal aptitude testing; learner corpora and moot courts; ethics in
legal language teaching; disability and legal education; translanguaging in legal education.

Forensic linguistics: Issues in forensic linguistics and forensic phonetics; discourse analysis in
forensic settings; authorship analysis and speaker identification; linguistic profiling; corpus
analysis in forensic contexts; speaker variation and speaker recognition; language use of
defendants, victims and the judiciary; expert testimony and linguistic evidence; expert opinions;
plagiarism detection; language and forensic psychiatry.

For a paper presentation of 20 minutes (plus 10 minutes discussion) please submit an abstract of
between 200 and 250 words. Please also include 4-5 keywords and a short list of key
references.

Submissions may be in English or German. Up to two abstracts may be submitted,
provided one of them is co-authored. The abstract(s), along with the speaker’s full name and
affiliation, should be sent by email to aall2022@oegrl.com.

The deadline for submissions is 1st June 2022.

Applicants will be notified of the conference committee’s decision by 1st August 2022.
For more details, please visit the AALL website: oegrl.com or https://www.wu.ac.at/bizcomm/events/aall2022/

Please send all conference-related questions to aall2022@oegrl.com.

Call for Abstracts for the fifth International Legal Linguistics Workshop

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10th December 2022 // Online

The fifth International Legal Linguistics Workshop (ILLWS22) will be held on 10th December 2022 online and co-hosted by the Austrian Association for Legal Linguistics (AALL) and the Department of African Language Studies at the University of the Western Cape, South Africa. The focus of the workshop is legal linguistics under the theme “Legal Linguistics around the globe”. It will primarily address, but is not limited to, questions such as:

  • How can critical legal linguistics provide practical answers to questions of national and international language planning and policy in legal contexts?
  • What is critical about critical applied legal linguistics and/or critical sociolinguistics?
  • How can legal linguistics improve the delivery of justice in monolingual legal systems?
  • What is the role of critical legal linguistics in the investigation of power struggles in the world of law and legislation?
  • Which contributions can critical legal linguists make in reducing obstacles of participation in sensitive human rights contexts?
  • What is the role and impact of disruptive technologies on the transformation of legal systems?
  • What are the avenues of interdisciplinary collaboration between critical legal linguistics and research on international business communication?
  • How can the notion of critique in legal linguistics contribute to critical legal language teaching in law schools?

Abstracts should be 200-300 words (excluding references and keywords) and should include 3-5 keywords and a selection of key references (3-5). Please also include information regarding the author(s), such as name(s) and affiliation(s).
Abstracts will be accepted in the following languages: English, isiXhosa, German

Submissions should be sent to co-organisers:
Mr Daniel Green: daniel.green@wu.ac.at and Dr Zakeera Docrat: zakeera.d@gmail.com

Deadline for submissions: 1 st November 2022

Download the Call for Abstracts – click here

Panel discussion Language and Law 7:
Language, Law & Terrorism

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POSTPONED – new date will be announced soon // Hauptbücherei Wien

This event will be in German

Terror. Terrorismus. Terrorist*innen. Diese Begriffe nehmen im medialen und öffentlichen Diskurs eine prominente Rolle ein und mitunter verschiedene Bedeutungen an. Angst vor der unerwarteten Gefahr wird nicht selten sozialen Gruppen als vermeintlichen Verursacherinnen zugeschrieben. Die Doktrin des gerechten Krieges, früher bekannt als »War on Terrorism«, gibt vor, den*die ‚Feind*in‘ zu kennen und seine*ihre ‚Neutralisation‘ legitimieren zu können. Gesetzliche Grundlagen lassen sich scheinbar schnell schaffen, wenn es darum geht, Sicherheit zu gewährleisten. Doch heißt ‚absolute Sicherheit‘ nicht zugleich auch, die eigene Freiheit aufzugeben? Was sind die Herausforderungen des demokratischen Rechtstaats im Kontext der Terrorismusabwehr und des ‚Anti-Terror-Pakets? In dieser Podiumsdiskussion beschäftigen wir uns mit dem Verhältnis von Sprache, Recht und Terrorismus.

With Irene Etzersdorfer (University of Vienna), Daniela Pisoiu (Austrian Institute for International Affairs) and Daniel Green (AALL / Vienna University of Economics and Business). Moderation by Aysun Salvatore (AALL).

Download the event poster – click here.

In cooperation with Stadt Wien – Büchereien.

From left to right: Irene Etzersdorfer, Daniela Pisoiu, Daniel Green, Aysun Salvatore

Panel discussion series: Language and Law

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THIS EVENT HAS BEEN POSTPONED DUE TO CORONA

The new date will be announced in due course

Language and Law

Sprache, Recht und Literatur

Literatur und Recht spiegeln durch die Sprache das Menschsein in all seinen Spielarten. Während das Recht durch die Sprache nur gebieten kann, lässt die Literatur auch das (Un)sagbare zum Gesagten, das (Un)schreibbare zum Geschriebenen werden.

Diese Podiumsdiskussion befasst sich mit der Frage nach den Berührungspunkten von Sprache, Recht und Literatur. Ist Sprache nur ein Medium unseres Denkens? Schafft sprachliches Handeln in Recht und Literatur auch kulturelle Wirklichkeiten? Welche Beziehungen bestehen zwischen Sprache, Recht und Literatur im Digitalen Zeitalter und wie lassen sich diese Beziehungen alltagsnah beschreiben?

With Andrea Griesebner (University of Vienna); Ebrahim Afsah (University of Vienna); Achim Hermann Hölter (University of Vienna); Maria Pober (University of Vienna / Deutsch-Kolleg Vienna der ÖOG Hammer-Purgstall / AALL) and Daniel Green (University of Vienna / AALL).

Keynote speech: Marie-Therese Sauer (University of Vienna / Uni-Verse Creative Writing Society)

Moderation: Jana Möseler (Danube-University Krems)

In cooperation with Stadt Wien – Büchereien.

Download the event poster here.

From left to right: Andrea Griesebner, Ebrahim Afsah, Achim Hermann Hölter, Maria Pober, Jana Möseler, Daniel Green, Marie-Therese Sauer