ENGL2126 / LALS 3002

Law, Meaning and Interpretation

Instructor: Professor C.M. Hutton (chutton@hku.hk)
Office: School of English, Run Run Shaw Tower, Centennial Campus (Room 834)
Office hours: Tuesday 11.30-12.20 and Fridays 11.30-12.20

Course schedule: 3 timetabled hours per week: Tuesday, 12.30-1.20; Friday, 12.30-2.20

Venue: CPD-2.58

Form of assessment: 100% coursework

INTRODUCTION
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This course offers a multidisciplinary introduction to key debates on language and
interpretation within legal theory, and to the interface between the study of language
and the discipline of law. It begins with an introduction to interpretation as reflecting
a set of pervasive intellectual problems in the study of literature, religion, language
and culture. It then moves on to the study of legal interpretation, focusing on word
meaning in law, stressing the sociopolitical dimension to interpretative questions
confronted by judges. The presentation of theories of language and law is
complemented by exercises drawn from decided cases or which reflect real-life legal
dilemmas. Law is seen in the context of issues such as authority and power; doubt
and certainty; meaning and indeterminacy. No technical knowledge of law, linguistics
or literary theory is assumed.

ONE COURSE, TWO SYSTEMS

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This course is in fact TWO courses in one: a BA and LALS course, but all with the
same content. The courses are assessed relative to the background of the students:
there is no “competition” between the different cohorts of students and no specified
grade distribution.

TOPICS
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1. An introduction to meaning and interpretation through examples: concepts,

approaches and issues
2. Interpretation as pervasive in literature, religion and social interaction

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 3. Linguistic approaches to lexical meaning and questions of ambiguity, polysemy,
vagueness, and indeterminacy
4. Legal approaches to meaning and interpretation, focussing on “ordinary
meaning”
5. Jurisprudential debates about legal interpretation and the question of
indeterminacy
6. Decided cases concerning classification of objects, events, activities and people
7. Settling the contested meaning of words in different contexts
8. Expertise and interpretation: linguists, judges, literary critics and ordinary
speakers

OBJECTIVES
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Students will gain an understanding of the fundamental interpretative dilemmas of
law, and the relationship of these both to the socio-political context of legal rules, and
to debates within the humanities about interpretative authority. They will gain
diagnostic and analytic skills in relation to language in legal problems, and an
understanding of the limits of legal certainty.

ORGANISATION
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The course has three timetabled hours per week. The Friday session will be primarily
lecture, whereas the Tuesday session is for review, in-class exercises, discussion of a
case, or the analysis of a reading.

ASSESSMENT
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The primary requirements are a mid-term essay/project of 2000 words (50% of final
grade) and a final essay of 2000 words (50% of final grade). The mid-term essay will
take the form of an academic essay or an expert brief.

As an alternative, students may work on a semester project, either individually or in

a group of two, with a proposal/partial first draft (50%) and a final draft (50%)
(though in the case of a semester project, the overall course grade will be normally
determined by the final draft). For individual projects the length should be 4000
words; for joint projects, at least 5000. Students wishing to undertake a project should
consult the instructor first and submit a preliminary proposal by September 29
(maximum 2 pages). This should contain a statement of the topic, the research issues
or questions, and details of case law and relevant secondary literature. The topic must

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bear a substantially close relationship to the topics in the course and deal with a
definitional question of social, political, cultural or ideological significance (i.e. not
just a technical legal question).

There is no participation grade. Students are welcome to ask questions at any point
or make comments or observations. At the instructor’s discretion, extra credit up to
5% may be given for class participation.

Please let the instructor know of any issues or problems with the course in a timely
fashion.

TEXTS
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The primary text is Word Meaning and Legal Interpretation (C.M. Hutton, Palgrave,
2014). This will be available on Moodle. There are many relevant journals, including
the International Journal of Speech Language and the Law; Yale Journal of Law & Humanities;
Law & Literature. The library has HeinOnline and Westlaw and other databases which
contain a vast amount of material. Course materials and readings will be made
available on Moodle.

DEADLINES (provisional)
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Mid-term essay: October 25, 23.59pm (assigned, Friday, September 22)
Final essay: December 19, 23.59pm (assigned, Friday, November 17)
Submission via Moodle

POINTS TO NOTE

• This course concerns issues common to all common law jurisdictions and draws
on case law from Hong Kong, England and Wales, and, especially, the United
States.
• The course does not attempt to capture the current state of the law in any
specific domain or jurisdiction, but rather is concerned with interpretative
issues that are pervasive in common law adjudication. It takes a historical view,
on the basis that certain questions appear more clearly with hindsight, and
ideological and other socio-cultural elements of cases emerge into view with
the passage of time
• The emphasis is on understanding and applying interpretative theory to real
legal questions and related social problems.

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COURSE OUTLINE (provisional)
Lecture Topic Cases
1 Sept 5 Introduction to the course Hong Kong Racing
(Tues) Sources of law Pigeon Association
v AG (1994, 1995);
Kuzmanovski v New
South Wales
Lotteries
Corporation [2010]
FCA 876;
Sept 12 Common law: the basics A v G (1964)
(Tues)
Sept 15 Introduction to legal interpretation: ordinary, Nix v Hedden
(Frid) technical, and legal meaning (1893); United
Biscuits v
Commissioners of
Customs of Excise
1991 LON/91/160
Sept 19 Legal definition: applying a statute Hong Kong Parks
(Tues) Control Ordinance
(1852)
Sept 22 Dictionaries and legal interpretation White City
(Frid) Shopping Center,
LP v PR
Restaurants (2006)
Sept 26 Ordinary language and legal language? Fisher v Bell (1961);
(Tues) Brutus v Cozens
(1972)
Sept 29 What is a race? Mandla v Dowell-
(Frid) Lee [1982] UKHL
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Oct 3 What is a house? Fully Profit (Asia)
(Tues) Ltd v Secretary for
Justice ([2011] 3
HKLRD 434)
Oct 6 Text, literal meaning, and intention Riggs v Palmer
(Frid) (1889); Re Rowland
(1963); McBoyle v
United States (1931)

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 Oct 9 The judge and Google US v Costello
(Tues) (2012)
Oct 13 Forensic linguistics, corpus linguistics, and the Apple, Inc. v.
(Frid) expert brief Amazon.com, Inc.
(2011); State v
Rasabout (2015)
Oct 17 READING WEEK
(Tues)
Oct 20 READING WEEK
(Frid)
Oct 24 Legal interpretation and technological change Olmstead v United
(Tues) States (1928)
Oct 27 OPEN DAY PREPARATIONS – no class
(Frid)
Oct 31 Textualism and the rule of lenity John Angus Smith v
(Tues) United States (1993)
Nov 3 Introduction to textualism & originalism Church of the Holy
(Frid) Trinity v United
States (1892)
Nov 7 Textualism and the Constitution Coy v. Iowa (1988)
(Tues)
Nov 10 Case study
(Frid)
Nov 14 Judicial overreach: personhood and the textualist Roe v Wade (1973)
(Tues) critique of Roe
Nov 17 Textualism as progressive? Interpreting ‘on Bostock v. Clayton
(Frid) grounds of sex’ County (2020)
Nov 21 Case review
(Tues)
Nov 24 The demise of Roe: textualist triumph or pure Dobbs v. Jackson
(Frid) ideology at work? Women's Health
Organization (2022)
Nov Course review
28
(Tues)

INDICATIVE CASES
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Adler v George (1964)
Apple Inc v Amazon.com Inc (2011)
Bostock v. Clayton County (2020)
Brutus v Cozens (1972)
California v Carney (1985)
Church of the Holy Trinity v. United States (1892)
Coy v. Iowa (1988)
District of Columbia v Heller (2008)
Department of Corrections v California Men’s Colony, Unit I (1993)
Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization (2022)
Edwards v. Canada (Attorney General) [1930] A.C. 124 (Privy Council)
Fisher v Bell [1961] QB 394
Harjo v. Pro-Football Inc, (2005)
Hong Kong Racing Pigeon Association v AG (1994, 1995)
Kuzmanovski v New South Wales Lotteries Corporation (2010)
Liversidge v Anderson (1941)
Mandla v Dowell-Lee (1983)
National Organization of Women (NOW) v. Scheidler (1994)
Nix v Hedden (1893)
Riggs v Palmer (1889)
John Angus Smith v United States (1993)
McBoyle v United States (1931)
Muscarello v United States (1998)
Nix v. Hedden, 149 U.S. 304 (1893)
Olmstead v United States (1928)
People v Carney (1981)
Re Rowland (1963)
Revenue and Customs Commissioners v Procter & Gamble UK (2008)
PETA v SeaWorld (2011)
Re Goodell (1876)
Roe v. Wade (1973)
John Angus Smith v United States (1993)
The Non Human Rights Project, Hercules & Leo v SUNY (2015)
United States v. Costello 666 F.3d 1040 (2012)

W v Registrar of Marriages (2010, 2013)

White City Shopping Center, LP v PR Restaurants (2006)

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COURSE READINGS (provisional–additional readings may be assigned for the mid-
term and final essay)
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Ainsworth, Janet (2006) Linguistics as a knowledge domain in the law. Drake Law
Review 54: 651.
Carney, Terence (2016) Using frames to determine ordinary meaning in court cases:
the case of “plant” and “vermin”. Stellenbosch papers in Linguistics 45: 31-48.
Hamilton, Sheryl (2008) Impersonations: Troubling the Person in Law and Culture.
University of Toronto Press.
Hutchinson, Alan (1995) A postmodern Hart: taking rules sceptically. The Modern
Law Review 58: 788-819.
Hutton, C.M. (2014) Word Meaning and Legal Interpretation. Palgrave.
Hutton, C.M. (2009) Language, Meaning and the Law. Edinburgh University Press.
Iser, Wolfgang (1972) The reading process: a phenomenological approach. New
Literary History 3: 279- 299.
Kress, Kenneth (1989) Legal indeterminacy. California Law Review 77: 283.
Pelikan, Jeroslav (2004) Interpreting the Bible & the Constitution. Yale UP.
Posner, Richard (2012) The Incoherence of Antonin Scalia. The New Republic, available
at: newrepublic.com.
Quilter, Julia & Luke McNamara (2013) Time to define the cornerstone of Public
Order legislation: the elements of offensive conduct and language under the
Summary Offences Act 1988 (NSW), 36 U.N.S.W.L.J. 534-562.
Scalia, Antonin (1997) A Matter of Interpretation: Federal Courts and the Law, Princeton.
Scalia, Antonin and Bryan Garner (2012) Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal
Texts. Thomson/West.
Slocum, Brian (2015) Ordinary Meaning. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Slocum, Brian (2017) The contribution of linguistics to legal interpretation, in Brian
Slocum, ed. The Nature of Legal Interpretation. Chicago: Chicago University
Press, pp. 14-45.
Stinneford, John (2008) The original meaning of "unusual": The eighth amendment
as a bar to cruel innovation. 102 Northwestern University Law Review 1739.

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
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Balkin, Jack (1987), 'Transcendental deconstruction, transcendent justice', Michigan
Law Review 92: 1131-1186.
Bix, Brian (1993) Law, Language and Legal Determinacy. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
[Conference Proceedings] (1995), 'Law and linguistics conference: proceedings' in
What is Meaning in Legal Text? Northwestern University Law and Linguistics
Conference, Washington University Law Quarterly 73(3): 800-970.

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Conley, John and William O'Barr (1998) Just Words: Law, Language and Power.
Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Constable, Marianne (2014) Our Word is Our Bond: How Legal Speech Acts. Stanford:
Stanford University Press.
Cornell, Drucilla (1991), Beyond Accommodation: Ethical Feminism, Deconstruction, and
the Law. New York: Routledge.
Cotterill, Janet, ed. (2004), Language in the Legal Process, Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave
MacMillan.
Cunningham, Clark, Judith Levi, Georgia Green, and Jeffrey Kaplan (1994), 'Plain
meaning and hard cases', Yale Law Journal 103: 1561-1625.
Dworkin, Ronald (1975), ‘Hard cases’, Harvard Law Review 88(6): 1057–1109.
Dworkin, Ronald (1991) Law’s Empire London: Fontana.
Endicott, Timothy A. O. (1996), 'Linguistic indeterminacy', Oxford Journal of Legal
Studies 16: 667-697.
Goodrich, Peter (1987), Legal Discourse: Studies in Linguistics, Rhetoric and Legal
Analysis, London: MacMillan.
Ingber, Stanley (1984), 'The marketplace of ideas: a legitimizing myth', Duke Law
Journal 1(1): 1-91.
Netanel, Neil Weinstock (2008) Copyright’s Paradox. Oxford, OUP.
Shuy, Roger (2002) Linguistic battles in trademark disputes. Basingstoke: Palgrave,
MacMillan.
Slocum, Brian (2015) Ordinary Meaning. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Slocum, Brian, ed. (2017) The Nature of Legal Interpretation. Chicago: University ifo
Chicago Press.
Solan, Lawrence (2010) The Language of Statutes: Laws and their Interpretation. Chicago:
The University of Chicago Press.
Solan, Lawrence and Peter Tiersma (2006), Speaking of Crime: The Language of Criminal
Justice, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
White, James Boyd (1987), ‘Thinking about our language’, Yale Law Journal 96: 1960–
1983.
Williams, Glanville L. (1945-6) Language and the law. Law Quarterly Review 61, 71-
86, 179-195, 293-303, 384-406; 62:387-406.

Please note the following:

On Plagiarism, including self-plagiarism:

https://english.hku.hk/plagiarism.htm

Grade expectations:
http://arts.hku.hk/file/upload/2485/grade_expectations.pdf