Non-native speech and attitudes to L2 English and other languages in the Proceedings of the Old Bailey

The Proceedings of the Old Bailey comprise Late Modern English transcripts from London’s Central Criminal Court between 1674 and 1913. Since the Proceedings were taken down by scribes who typically attempted to preserve in writing not only the content of the testimonies but also their linguistic nature, they testify to the multilingual environment that was London throughout the centuries and give evidence of the established practice of using interpreters and mixed juries when cases involved individuals of different nationalities. The scribes also strove to record non-native English. This paper uses a combination of corpus research (based on the full Proceedings and the Old Bailey Corpus 2.0 ) and thematic analysis to look at how non-native speech is represented in the corpus and what the underlying attitudes are to people speaking other or several languages. The findings suggest that while non-native speech is transcribed in a way that would be uncommon in today’s courtrooms and may be seen from a contemporary point of view as mocking, the Proceedings mainly suggest neutral, matter-of-fact attitudes towards second-language speakers of English and a generally positive attitude towards language learning and teaching, with implications for modern record-keeping practices and language-based immigration restrictions.