Learning ‘legal English’, the specialized language that students encounter in law school, is particularly challenging. Law students must learn to use English forms and structures in such a way as to meet the expectations of members of the legal academic community, consistent with the conventions of the legal discipline. Learning legal English is therefore a process which involves elements of both legal expertise and language expertise. As a result, both lawyers and language teachers have something to contribute in order to support this learning process. This interdisciplinary project combines the expertise of lawyers and language teachers/applied linguists to develop a digital multimedia resource for legal English based on an analysis of the language needs of Hong Kong law students. This resource will target the most common tasks and genres for law students, e.g. essays, legal problem questions, memoranda, dissertations, oral mooting, and provide input in two forms: 1) edited video interviews with legal experts providing advice on legal writing and legal argument; 2) task-based activities created by applied linguists providing language-focused extensions on experts’ observations.

1. To provide an in-depth analysis of the English language needs of Hong Kong law students;
2. To develop video-based teaching materials to target these needs, including expert videos, language-focused activities and resources;
3. To promote the use of these language-focused materials by law professors in legal skills and content courses.

1. Dr. Christoph A. Hafner, Associate Professor, Department of English, City University of Hong Kong (PI)
2. Mr. John Burke, Senior Teaching Fellow, School of Law, City University of Hong Kong
3. Prof. Katherine Lynch, Associate Professor, Faculty of Law, The University of Hong Kong
4. Prof. Anne Scully-Hill, Associate Professor, Faculty of Law, Chinese University of Hong Kong
5. Dr. Rajesh Sharma, Senior Lecturer, School of Global, Urban and Social Studies, RMIT University, Australia

University Grants Council of Hong Kong: Collaborative language-related project