Discourse and Diversionary Justice

This book analyses the Youth Justice Conferencing Program in New South Wales, Australia. Exploring this form of diversionary justice from the perspectives of functional linguistics and performance studies, the authors combine close textual analysis with ethnographic research methodologies. They examine how participants use the discourse semantic resources available to them to achieve such outcomes as reparation for the victim, reintegration of the offender into the community, and reconciliation between the various parties. This uniquely-researched work is sure to be of interest to students and scholars of applied linguistics, sociolinguistics and discourse analysis.