Speaking with different voices: the problems with English law and psychiatric injury

Private law courts in the UK have maintained the de minimis threshold as a condition precedent for a successful claim for the infliction of mental harm. This de minimis threshold necessitates the presence of a ‘recognised psychiatric illness’ as opposed to ‘mere emotion’. This standard has also been adopted by the criminal law courts when reading the Offences Against the Person Act 1861 to include non-physical injury. In determining the cut-off point between psychiatric injury and mere emotion, the courts have adopted a generally passive acceptance of expert testimony and the guidelines used by mental health professionals to make diagnoses. Yet these guidelines were developed for use in a clinical setting, not a legal one. This article examines the difficulty inherent in utilising the ‘dimensional’ diagnostic criteria used by mental health professionals to answer ‘categorical’ legal questions. This is of particular concern following publication of the new diagnostic manual, DSM-V in 2013, which will further exacerbate concerns about compatibility. It is argued that a new set of diagnostic guidelines, tailored specifically for use in a legal context, is now a necessity.

The Church of the Abandoned Christ: David Peace's 'Red Riding Quartet' and the Wreck of the White Ship

David Peace’s novel Nineteen Seventy-seven concludes with the hack journalist Jack Whitehead being granted a terrifying apocalyptic vision, seconds before he is trepanned with a Phillips screwdriver by the sinister Reverend Martin Laws. Included in this vision is a curious reference to the wreck of the White Ship, a maritime disaster in 1120 that drowned William Atheling, heir to the English throne, and ultimately doomed England to years of civil war. This article explores Peace’s strange use of the shipwreck in his “Red Riding Quartet,” particularly the way he links it—in the quartet’s final volume, Nineteen Eighty Three—to a revisionist account of the aftermath of the crucifixion that leads a wounded Christ to a tragic death in the cold waters of the English Channel.

Codeswitching in Igbo-English Bilingualism

This study evaluates the Matrix Language Frame model of codeswitching with Igbo-English data and concludes that the data can indeed be considered a classic case of codeswitching, in that a Matrix Language can be clearly identified in bilingual clauses. It establishes this through both qualitative and quantitative analyses that make use of the typological contrasts between Igbo and English to uncover supportive evidence for the Matrix Language Frame model and its associated three principles: the Matrix Language Principle, the Asymmetry Principle, and the Uniform Structure Principle. The investigation goes one step further by using spectrograms and the analysis of vowel harmony between English free morphemes and Igbo bound affixes to demonstrate that two phonologies can co-exist in codeswitching and that codeswitching forms are essentially pronounced with a phonology that does not entirely resemble that of the Matrix Language variety. Furthermore, the study finds that the same language production mechanisms as detailed under the Matrix Language Frame model and its associated three principles underlie both single word and multi-word codeswitching. That is, the present study, like those before it adopting the Matrix Language framework (see Amuzu 2010: 277), underlines the importance of the assumptions underpinning the Matrix Language Principle: (1) that language production is modular; (2) that lexical structure is both complex and abstract; and (3) that languages in contact divide responsibilities in what they may contribute toward lexical structure during the production of mixed constituents. Moreover, the study finds that Igbo-English bilinguals can always sustain ready access to their mother tongue mental lexicon during online speech production and thus Igbo-English may duly be described as a ‘classic’ case of codeswitching.

Studying French-Origin Middle English Lexis Using the Bilingual Thesaurus of Medieval England: A Comparison of the Vocabulary of Two Occupational Domains

This paper investigates how far it is possible to assess the degree of penetration of French-origin lexis into Middle English by means of the structures and data of the Bilingual Thesaurus of Medieval England. It begins with an outline of the aim and scope of the project, describing some of the methodological decisions behind the creation of the Bilingual Thesaurus, such as the use of the Middle English Dictionary and the Anglo Norman Dictionary as sources. Some provisional findings relating to Middle English words of French-origin in the semantic domains of Manufacture, in particular the sub-domains of Metal-working and Woodworking, and Travel by Water are then presented.