During the past half century, enormous strides have been made by linguists, philosophers and cognitive psychologists in coming to an understanding of the human language faculty.  Some of this progress has direct implications for the legal system.  This course is designed to study some of the most interesting of these interactions.  In particular, we will ask how this learning should cause us to question some of the tacit assumptions about language that are embedded in the law, and how knowledge about the human language faculty can bear directly on the resolution of disputes within the legal system.  Among the topics to be discussed will be vagueness and ambiguity in legal interpretation, the nature of perjury, the interpretation of multilingual laws, the legal system’s selective use of pragmatics, and forensic linguistics.