The Role of Associations in Identifying Markers of Interference of Foreign Legal Experience

The purpose of the research: The present research aims at analyzing the structure of the legal awareness and the factors that influence its formation, considering the ways a legal stereotype appears and functions, as well as describing the details of the process of legal awareness formation in students studying legal English and legal systems of the common law countries. In the course of an associative experiment the students were asked to provide associations to stimulus words «court», «jury» and «law». The authors attempt at finding out if it is possible to speak about the interference of legal stereotypes when students study a legal foreign language. Conclusions: In the course of the experiment the authors arrive at the conclusion that while studying legal English and legal systems of common law countries, the students acquire legal attitudes, norms and values of a foreign language society. Consequently, the secondary legal socialization takes place, which is represented by emergence and fixation of foreign language legal stereotypes and legal attitudes in future Russian lawyers. The results of the experiment prove the fact that law students possess already formed foreign language legal stereotypes. It is regarded desirable to work out recommendations for foreign language stereotypes formation in case it is necessary to correct already formed legal attitudes and stereotypes in the native language.

legal stereotypes, legal mindsets, legal awareness, associative experiment