Università Roma Tre

Syllabus
The course provides the basic language needed to allow students to understand main points on subjects that are familiar and to deal with communicative situations with a certain degree of ease. In addition, the course aims to enhance students’ ability to write simple related text on legal subjects which are of personal interest or relevant to the topics included in the syllabus. The course also aims to express, describe, give reasons and provide explanations on topics of interest, legal issues and current events including news broadcastings.
The course has as its principal objectives:
a) to identify and understand the meaning and semantic networks of key legal terminology and to develop the capacity to use it in discussing current issues on a variety of legal topics. Special attention is paid to stimulating the learning of legal vocabulary by means of modeling, feedback, recasts, questioning and cognitive structuring so as to consolidate already known terms (prior, encyclopedic knowledge) and newly acquired ones;
b) to gain familiarity with other legal systems; in particular, the common law legal systems and their primary and secondary sources of law in order to stimulate comparisons with students’ ‘home’ legal systems;
c) to develop textual analysis skills and critical thinking in English at sentential and supra-sentential levels so as to enhance critical reading skills by examining discipline-related basic common law and European law documents such as Treaty articles, directives, regulations, decisions, opinions and recommendations;
d) to identify and analyze the language of landmark case-law judgments: facts, legal issue(s), reasoning and decisions;
e) to improve basic advocacy skills by describing and arguing in favour of and/or against a position(s) taken by another colleague. This entails using English through active engagement in group (team-work) and class interaction to optimize the acquired knowledge, based on the various readings and arguments developed during the course.

Materials
The materials for the lessons and other resources are uploaded weekly before each lesson in the reserved site of the Faculty of Law (“didattica”) which may be accessed by students enrolled in the course. Additional materials will be handed out in class. Links and materials relevant to the topics discussed may be indicated throughout the course for further research by participants, or placed in the lecturer’s Internet site.


Texts and dictionaries recommended:
• Easwood, J. Oxford Grammar Practice. Oxford, UK: OUP.
• Murphy, R. English Grammar in Use. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
• Krois-Linder, A. (2006). International Legal English. Cambridge: CUP.
• English Law Dictionary. Peter H. Collin (ed.), Middlesex, UK: Peter Collin Publishing.
• Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of Law. Massachusetts, USA: Merriam Webster Inc.
• Black’s Law Dictionary. St. Paul, MN, USA: Thomson/West.
• Macmillan English Dictionary for Advanced Learners. Oxford, UK: Macmillan Education.

Agli studenti è richiesto il livello B1 d’inglese secondo l’European Framework for Languages (EFRL). I venti incontri mirano a portare lo studente ad un livello B2-C1, per comprendere i testi giuridici nella lingua inglese ed esprimersi nel linguaggio specifico.

Programma del corso
Ci saranno 40 ore d’insegnamento e la lingua d’insegnamento sarà l’inglese. I topics delle lezioni saranno i seguenti: ENGLISH IN LEGAL CONTEXTS, THE LANGUAGE OF A LEGAL SYSTEM, THE EUROPEAN DIMENSION, CRIMINAL LAW, CIVIL LAW, CONTRACT, THE AMERICAN SUPREME COURT. Role play e dibattito farà parte della didattica con presentazioni dei gruppi per consentire l’interpretazione di testi giuridici. E’ la responsabilità dello studente munirsi di tutti i materiali didattici e portare il testo ad ogni lezione. Facoltativo, ma vivamente consigliato è un dizionario di lingua inglese giuridica e un vocabolario Italiano-Inglese. La frequenza è consigliata soprattutto per un completo raggiungimento degli obbiettivi dell’insegnamento.

Testi di riferimento
Il testo principale sarà:

LEGAL ENGLISH and the Common Law 3° edition, author Patricia Sours, Published by Wolters Klumer/CEDAM, 2015
Altri documenti relativi alla didattica del corso Lingua Giuridica Inglese M-Z saranno pubblicati in "didattica" durante il semestre.

Testi ausiliari suggeriti
Essential Grammar in Use, Murphy and Pallini, Cambridge, Terza Edizione
English Grammar in Use, Murphy, Cambridge, Intermediate or Advanced Level
Macmillan English Dictionary for Advanced Learners, Oxford, UK
Oxford English Grammar Course, Swan & Walter, Oxford, Intermediate or Advanced,
Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary, G&C Merriam Co., Springfield, MA
Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of Law, G&C Merriam Co., Springfield, MA
English Law Dictionary, Peter H. Collin, Peter Collin Publisher, Middlesex, UK
Black’s Law Dictionary, Thomson/West, St. Paul, MN