Email-“Inspired” Changes in Non-Native Legal Discourse

Abstract

At IDC, students use electronic resources for research and online interactive communication with instructors, usually in English. This paper discusses preliminary research into the overlap between the informality of email communication between students and instructors and the growing use (or misuse) of email-type informal discourse in formal written legal assignments. Four students were given a hypothetical legal case and requested to write: (a) a formal letter that would be sent by email to one of the parties in the case, and (b) an executive memo email to the senior partner in one of the law firms representing the parties. No instruction was given as to constructing a formal legal letter or an executive memo. In the resulting email communications, many examples of typical informal email shorthand were used. The students were interviewed and were able to locate and change most of the errors in their letters. Several students expressed the belief that this type of “shorthand” is or should be acceptable when the formal message is an email communication.