Details

Subject(s)

• Law—Language [Browse]
• Equality before the law [Browse]
• English language—Rhetoric—Sex differences [Browse]
• Communication in law [Browse]
• Sociological jurisprudence [Browse]

Author

• O'Barr, William M. [Browse]
• Conley Riner, Robin [Browse]

Series

• Chicago series in law and society [More in this series]
• The Chicago series in law and society

Summary note

Is it 'just words' when a lawyer cross-examines a rape victim in the hopes of getting her to admit an interest in her attacker? Is it 'just words' when the Supreme Court hands down a decision or when business people draw up a contract? In tackling the question of how an abstract entity exerts concrete power, Just Words focuses on what has become the central issue in law and language research: what language reveals about the nature of legal power. [The authors] show how the microdynamics of the legal process and the largest questions of justice can be fruitfully explored through the field of linguistics. Each chapter covers a language-based approach to a different area of the law, from the cross-examinations of victims and witnesses to the inequities of divorce mediation. Combining analysis of common legal events with a broad range of scholarship on language and law, [this books] seeks the reality of power in the everyday practice and application of the law. As the only study of its type, the book is the definitive treatment of the topic and will be welcomed by students and specialists alike. This third edition brings this essential text up to date with new chapters on nonverbal, or 'multimodal, ' communication in legal settings and law, language, and race."-- Provided by publisher.

Bibliographic references

Includes bibliographical references (pages 215-232) and index.

Original version

Originally published: Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 1998.

Contents

• The politics of law and the science of talk
• The revictimization of rape victims
• The language of mediation
• Speaking of patriarchy
• A natural history of disputing
• The discourses of law in cross-cultural perspective
• Language ideology and the law
• Forensic linguistics
• Multimodal communication in the courtroom
• Language and race in the courtroom
• Conclusion.

Show 8 more Contents items

Other editions

Revision of: Conley, John M. Just words. Chicago : University of Chicago Press, ©2005

ISBN

• 9780226484228 ((cloth : alk. paper))
• 022648422X ((cloth : alk. paper))
• 9780226484365 ((pbk. : alk. paper))
• 022648436X ((pbk. : alk. paper))

LCCN

2018030504

OCLC

1043054702

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