Professorial Style in Context 147return promise had been “sought”; (g) a discussion of the remedy the granddaugh-
ter had requested using an estoppel argument and dissection of the requirements
for estoppel. Although the student is clearly an active participant in the dialogue,
the professor is in charge, lingering over a point until he is satisfied that discus-
sion has been exhausted, and then moving on. In his turns, the professor fre-
quently provides the necessary legal-discursive framework for the student’s
responses:
Transcript 7.2 [4/17/11, 14]
Prof.: [end of 1.15 turn] We only have those two questions. Is the thing given as a
benefit to the promisor or a detriment to the promisee, and is it given in
exchange for the promisor’s promise and is the promisor’s promise given
in exchange for that benefit or detriment, right? We always ask those two
questions. Restatement Section 71 puts it in black-and-white, straightfor-
ward, nice and simple, all right? Okay. In the actual case, to get back to the
actual case, Ms. B., there’s no question, I guess, that the promise induced
the giving up of job?Prof.: [... later in same class session, end of 1.33 turn... ] but, it also had
something to do with the following: “Induce the change of position,” this
is page ninety-six, “in accordance with a real or apparent intention of the
party against ().” “Accordance with a real or apparent intention.” What do
you make of that?In each of these two excerpts, the professor reminds the student of the parts of the
legal test to be applied, in the first instance putting the parts of the test in the form
of questions that the student is to ask herself (see Chapter 4). By doing this, the
professor constructs a strong discursive framework that allows the student to sim-
ply fill in the blank by applying the legal categories to the facts of the case at hand
as she moves through the narrative segments he sets up.
In addition to creating a coherent narrative thread that moves the discussion
through relatively clear, semantically delineated segments, the professor’s questions
also guide the student’s responses in terms of form, creating a fairly smooth give-
and-take. (This is arguably the point at which the professor-student pair-part
structure comes closest to achieving a “monologue in adjacency pair form.”) For
example, a number of the professor’s turns begin with repetition of some part of
the student’s previous utterance, creating the kinds of discursive links that have
been noted in trial talk:^14
Transcript 7.3 [4/17/7–14]:Turn 62/Ms. B.: Lack of consideration.
T. 63/Prof.: It was lack of consideration, okay....T. 90/Ms. B.: I’d say “yes.”
T. 92/Prof.: You’d say “yes.”T. 96/Ms. B: Hamer.
T. 97/Prof.: Looks like Hamer, right.