Dennis Baron, English/Linguistics

I will be teaching two iterations of my Language and Law class in Spring, 2013: one on the undergraduate level open to all undergrads and of particular interest to prelaw concentrators, and a graduate seminar which would certainly be of interest to the grad students in the Cultures of Law in Global Contexts project.

I have written on language and law issues as well: "The English-Only Question: An Official Language for Americans?" was supported by an NEH fellowship and published by Yale University Press in 1990; I've written a couple of articles in books and journals on the subject, along with several op-eds on official English questions for major papers, including the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times; I wrote an amicus brief for the District of Columbia in its Supreme Court appeal, Washington, DC, v. Heller, giving a linguistic interpretation of the Second Amendment from the 18th century to the present; and I have given a number of invited talks on language and law--particularly in the areas of official language legislation and minority language rights and protections--in the US and abroad. I've done legal consulting on language matters, and will be discussing minority matters in an upcoming PBS series on Hispanics in America in 2013.

I'm currently drafting a book on language and law which, though it will concentrate mostly on the social and legal issues in the US, will also consider language legislation and minority language rights in the EU, the former Soviet states, and other parts of the world.

Click here for my personal web site.