By: Billy Harrison
STUDENT VOICES | THE 2024 CHYNN ETHICS PAPER PRIZE WINNER
Progress or Paternalism: Navigating Language Policy in American Courtrooms
By Billy Harrison
Progress or Paternalism: Navigating Language Policy in American Courtrooms
Studying biases in the American legal system against non-standard dialects of English is newly charted territory among researchers. One example of such a language variety is African American Vernacular English (AAVE), which is spoken by most working- and middle-class African Americans, though not exclusively or universally. Sociolinguistic experts are virtually unanimous in asserting that AAVE, like all other non-standard dialects of English, is a valid, rule-governed language variety which is no less coherent than Standard American English (SAE)—the “prestige” dialect of English which serves as the de facto language variety of the American legal system and essentially all other American institutions. With overwhelming evidence revealing systemic discrimination against African Americans in the legal system (longer sentences for the same crimes[1], lower likelihood to receive reduced sentences in plea bargaining[2], etc.), it is curious that linguistic discrimination in courtrooms has not been more closely examined. According to the limited research to which we do have access, this is an issue deserving of much more attention and emphasis in efforts to redress such systemic injustice.
Court Reporters and AAVE
I distinctly remember the first time I read a first-of-its-kind 2019 study entitled “Testifying while Black” in Professor Britta Ingebretson’s Language and Race course at Fordham University. The shocking and troubling results inspired my interest in critically applying sociolinguistics to the American legal system as a prospective law student. In the study, the four researchers examine the accuracy of court reporters (a.k.a. court stenographers) in transcribing speakers who use AAVE. Accurate, verbatim transcripts of all court proceedings are vital, as they serve as the official record of what is said and play a crucial role in both initial hearings and subsequent appeals; precise language is, of course, crucial in a legal setting. In order to be certified, court reporters typically have to demonstrate an accuracy level of at least 95%, though the certification process for court reporters does not involve non-standard dialects like AAVE.[3] When the researchers played audio clips of AAVE speakers to the Philadelphia court reporters in the study, they were able to transcribe just 59.5% of phrases correctly, and were able to accurately paraphrase the same phrases just 33% of the time—staggeringly poor results suggesting a lack of basic comprehension of the stimuli.[4]
In interviews after the experimental study, many court reporters exhibited negative biases toward the speakers from the audio clips, revealing a common presumption of criminality even when the vast majority of stimuli in the study made no mention of criminality or the justice system whatsoever. Many also implied that the speakers in the audio clips had used incoherent grammar and improper vocabulary, which they had not.[5] This is reflective of the extremely harmful and all-to-prevalent language ideology that deviation from SAE is inherently “bad” English. Such a study scratches at the surface of how deep-rooted this racist and classist ideology likely is within American institutions.
The troubling implications of this study do not end with court reporters. What about judges, juries, and lawyers? There is little reason to think that similar issues of non-standard dialect comprehension and bias do not exist amongst these groups despite the current lack of academic literature examining this topic.
Linguistic Biases in Jurors
While researchers have yet to perform a systematic review of the consequences of jury bias against the usage of non-standard English dialects, a clear example of such discrimination could be seen in the very public trial of neighborhood watchman George Zimmerman in 2013 after he shot and killed Trayvon Martin—an unarmed black teenager. The star witness for the prosecution against Zimmerman was Rachel Jeantel—Trayvon’s best friend who was on the phone with him as he was stalked and confronted by Zimmerman in the minutes leading up to his death. Jeantel spoke in AAVE with subtle influences from Haitian Creole during her testimony.[6] The jury completely dismissed Jeantel’s testimony, not once mentioning it in their deliberations before acquitting Zimmerman, with several of them suggesting in interviews after the trial that she came across as untrustworthy and incoherent. Linguists John R. Rickford and Sharese King of Stanford University assert that Jeantel’s English was “misheard and misaligned,” adding that “her testimony, which provided crucial evidence, was disregarded because of its unfamiliarity to most jurors and social biases against AAVE speakers.”[7] An important point of emphasis is that it is not her use of AAVE alone that likely contributed to the jury’s dismissal of her testimony; instead, it was the way in which their perception of qualities like her appearance and voice quality alongside her vernacular combined into a semiotic constellation which the heavily white jury unjustifiably distrusted and rejected. It is not simply that many non-AAVE users do not understand AAVE; it is also that, in many cases, they do not care to understand it to begin with due to their prejudiced perception of those who use that language variety.
Ethical Dilemmas in Short-Term Policy Solutions
This leaves us with the difficult task of attempting to redress these issues. With regard to court reporter inaccuracy in transcribing non-standard dialects, perhaps the most obvious and agreeable proposal is to require all court reporters to demonstrate the same level of accuracy in transcribing such dialects as they do with SAE during the certification process.[8] This, combined with cross-checking by linguists, would ensure the most accurate record possible. However, this would not come close to fully solving the issue of bias against non-standard English dialects in American courtrooms.
Having accurate transcripts of testimonies in dialects that disproportionately white juries largely do not understand would only lead to limited progress. While SAE and non-standard language varieties like AAVE are generally considered to be mutually intelligible, widespread de facto racial segregation continues to prevent language contact and fuel prejudice between predominantly white SAE speakers and predominantly black AAVE speakers, leading to the intelligibility issues which we observe in courtrooms. One proposal to redress this issue, which is inherently controversial but nonetheless worth considering, is the introduction of vernacular interpreters in courtrooms.
If the idea of an AAVE-SAE interpreter feels uncomfortable to you—you are not alone. The ethics, optics, and implications of such a policy are obviously questionable, and the idea may sound like something out of a comedy sketch to many. Even the authors of the 2019 study which I detailed earlier in this essay opposed such a policy, arguing that it runs the risk of “completely delegitimizing [AAVE] speakers in the courtroom”.[9] I would add that AAVE speakers may justifiably perceive such a policy as paternalistic, patronizing, and demeaning. Nonetheless, interpreters may be our best short-term solution to redressing the issue of inter-dialect miscomprehension in courtrooms.
There are simply no other short-term policy solutions aside from interpreters which assure that all parties are guaranteed to hear the court proceedings in a language variety that they are equipped to comprehend to a level fitting of a serious actor in a legal proceeding. The long-term project to deconstruct this harmful systemic language ideology is obviously vitally important, but if we wish to find a meaningful temporary solution to this linguistic crisis in the legal system within the next few years, interpreters are the only apparent option. One may then beg the question—could it possibly be ethical to advocate a potentially paternalistic & demeaning policy which could implicitly reify the harmful ideology that it seeks to combat? My reluctant answer is yes, with some important caveats. While interpreters may not eliminate the false perception by jurors and judges that a non-standard dialect speaker is incoherent or untrustworthy, it would not necessarily exacerbate such a perception either, and at least those jurors and judges would have access to a version of what that person said in a language variety with which they are completely familiar, increasing understanding and, perhaps in some cases, empathy; additionally, juries and judges could be educated by a linguist about the equal validity and coherence of relevant dialects before a trial begins to mitigate this potential negative implication of the policy as much as possible. The benefits of guaranteed intelligibility seem to clearly outweigh the potential negative of non-standard dialects being subtly reinforced as illegitimate, especially given that we can implement measures to combat this false notion and, in turn, mitigate this risk.
In terms of the potential concerns with paternalism and patronization, I believe that Rickford & King, whom I mentioned previously, are correct in advocating for this policy to be optional for vernacular speakers.[10] Even as, from a top-down perspective, implementing a system of mandatory interpreters for vernacular speakers may maximize the effectiveness of the policy in promoting intelligibility, it is important to respect the personal dignity and agency of those whom this policy seeks to help by allowing them discretion in whether or not they want to utilize interpreters. Given the sensitive nature of this potential policy, it would be most ethical to structure it as an optional resource, not an imposition. While such a policy would be far from perfect or comprehensive in solving the underlying systemic issue, the benefit of increasing mutual understanding in American courtrooms is worth the squeamishness such a resource may invoke.
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Works Cited
References
“2017 Demographic Differences in Federal Sentencing.” United States Sentencing Commission, 9 Nov. 2023, http://www.ussc.gov/research/research-reports/2017-demographic-differences-federal-sentencing.
Jones, Taylor, et al. “Testifying while black: An experimental study of court reporter accuracy in transcription of African American English.” Language, 2019, p. 2, https://doi.org/10.1353/lan.0.0235.
Metcalfe, Christi, and Ted Chiricos. “Race, plea, and charge reduction: An assessment of racial disparities in the plea process.” Justice Quarterly, vol. 35, no. 2, 24 Mar. 2017, pp. 223–253, https://doi.org/10.1080/07418825.2017.1304564.
Rickford, John R., and Sharese King. “Language and linguistics on trial: Hearing Rachel Jeantel (and other vernacular speakers) in the courtroom and beyond.” Language, vol. 92, no. 4, 2016, p. 967, https://doi.org/10.1353/lan.2016.0078.
New York Times, July 23, 2023, https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/23/us/philadelphia-pools-closed.html.
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