As a linguistically-grounded, critical examination of consent, this volume views consent not as an individual mental state or act but as a process that is interactionally-and discursively-situated. It highlights the ways in which legal consent is often fictional (at best) due to the impoverished view of meaning and the linguistic ideologies that typically inform interpretations and representations in the legal system. The authors are experts in linguistics and law, who use diverse theoretical and analytical approaches to examine the complex ways in which language is used to seek, negotiate, give, or withhold consent in a range of legal contexts.Authors draw on case studies, or larger research corpora or a wider sociolegal approach, in investigations of: police-citizen interactions in the street, police interviews with suspects, police call handlers, rape and abduction trials, interactions with lay litigants in a multilingual small claims court, a restorative justice sentencing scheme for young offenders, biomedical research, and legal disputes over contracts.

Chapter 1Introduction: Linguistic and Discursive Dimensions of ConsentSusan Ehrlich and Diana EadesSection 1: Free and voluntary consentChapter 2Culture, cursing, and coercion: The impact of police officer swearing on the voluntariness of consent to search in police-citizen interactionsJanet AinsworthChapter 3Post-penetration rape: Coercion or freely-given consent?Susan EhrlichChapter 4Erasing context in the courtroom construal of consentDiana EadesSection 2: Informed consent vs. ritualized consentChapter 5Talking the ethical turn: Drawing on tick-box consent in policingFrances RockChapter 6Transparent and opaque consent in contract formationLawrence SolanChapter 7The empty performative?: Informed consent to genetic researchJohn Conley, R. Jean Cadigan and Arlene DavisSection 3: The influence of discursive practicesChapter 8Promoting litigant consent to arbitration in multilingual small claims courtPhilipp Sebastian AngermeyerChapter 9Consent and compliance in youth justice conferences?Michele Zappavigna, Paul Dwyer and J. R. MartinChapter 10Non-consent and discursive resistance: Radical reformulation in a post-sting police interviewPhilip GainesSection 4: The coercive force of cautionsChapter 11Totality of circumstances and translating the Miranda warningsSusan Berk-SeligsonChapter 12Negotiating the right to remain silent in inquisitorial trialsFleur van der Houwen and Guusje JolChapter 13'No comment' responses to questions in police investigative interviewsElizabeth Stokoe, Derek Edwards and Helen Edwards