International Journal of English Linguistics; Vol. 8, No. 3; 2018 ISSN 1923-869X E-ISSN 1923-8703 Published by Canadian Center of Science and Education 276 The Lawyer’s Discourse in the Courtroom: A Contrastive Study in English and Arabic Mohammed Jasim Betti 1 & Thura Ghalib Hashim 2 1 Dept. of English, College of Education for Humanities, Thiqar University, Nassiriya, Iraq 2 Ministry of Education, Directorate of Education, Nassiriya, Iraq Correspondence: Mohammed Jasim Betti, Dept. of English, College of Education for Humanities, Thiqar University, Nassiriya, Iraq. E-mail: alseady2@gmail.com or thura344@yahoo.com Received: November 17, 2017 Accepted: December 5, 2017 Online Published: February 10, 2018 doi:10.5539/ijel.v8n3p276 URL: http://doi.org/10.5539/ijel.v8n3p276 Abstract The study is restricted to examine and contrast the linguistic features (lexical, syntactic, discourse and pragmatic) of the English and Arabic lawyers’ discourse in the courtroom. Eight trials are selected for the sake of comparison and investigation: four English trials and four Arabic ones with sixteen lawyers (eight for the plaintiff and eight for the defendant). Carrying out the analysis relies on the use of the constructed model and the statistical program called “Statistical Package for the Social Sciences” (SPSS) that is used in this study to analyze the collected data statistically. The current study is mainly an attempt to put a spot of light on the special lawyer’s language in the courtroom in English and Arabic, and also to investigate this jargon by means of some stated levels. The study arrives at the unique features of legal language, and at some significant similarities and differences between English and Arabic. Keywords: lawyer’s discourse, courtroom, contrastive, English, Arabic 1. Introduction Forensic linguistics, which is a complementary part of applied linguistics, covers a vast number of topics, such as the language of trials, lawyers, judges and the language of the law itself (Shuy, 2006, p. 104). Crystal (2008, p. 194) defines forensic linguistics as “the use of linguistic techniques to investigate crimes in which language data forms part of evidence, such as in the use of grammatical or lexical criteria to authenticate police statements”. Legal language is the collection of expressions that are used by people. It is like a game of words. Thus, a good lawman, like lawyer and judge, is the one who can make use of the right legal words at the right time (Bhatia, 2010, p. 2). Remarkably, legal language has a special institutional function (Holt & Johnson, 2006, p. 23). Recently, legal language is considered a specific variety of language which can be used as a highly differentiated variety for specific purposes. Moreover, the language of law is regarded as a sub-branch of legal language. Language is created to serve human affairs, but at the same time it can be used to solve issues of law (Trosborg, 1997, pp. 15-19). Law is highly dependent on words whereas morality and customs are included within the human behavior. Thus, one can notice that words make law. Lawyers use language to explicate what the law means and to have debates before the court and jury. Simply put, law and its language have a great effect on the daily life of everyone in the society (Teirsma, 1999, p. 1). In the previous literature about lawyer’s discourse, lawyer’s discourse in the Arabic courtrooms has not been investigated, and no contrastive study of the English and Arabic discourse has been constructed. Hence, there is a need for research in this area. The study is an attempt to give a brief, clear and comprehensive description of lawyer’s discourse in English and Arabic It also gives answers to the following questions: 1) What are the main features of lawyers’ language? 2) What are the main formal procedures of the English and Arabic trials? 3) What are the main differences between the lawyers’ roles in the English and Arabic courtrooms?