Pedagogies of Context: Language Ideology and Expression Rights at the European Court of Human Rights

This chapter asks how judicial language ideologies (beliefs about the social significance and power of language) shape how courts regulate speech and freedom of expression. The chapter analyses key cases at the European Court of Human Rights. I argue that analysis of expression rights needs to account for beliefs about speech as a set of social relations and textual and interpretative practices. In analysing speech as a social and ideological process (rather than a matter of content), we can better understand how judges determine the limits of legal management of speech and the balance between margin of appreciation and individual rights.