32 Introduction
language operate to shape ongoing interactions and to enact social structures. In
addition, sociolinguists have for some time used quantitative methods to track
overall patterns in speech, counting and measuring salient features of discourse.
Finally, scholars from these and other disciplines have combined other methods
with the use of interviews to obtain better information about how the participants
themselves make sense of what is going on. I drew on all of these methods in de-
veloping an understanding of law school classroom dynamics. This study, then,
employed a combination of in-class observation, ethnography, transcript analy-
sis, quantitative coding, and interviews. We observed and taped an entire semester
of classes to get a fuller picture of classroom dynamics and to avoid capturing only
one part of a semester-long process. We worked in eight different schools in an
effort to catch differences that might exist across the status hierarchy of law schools.
To include this number of classrooms in a study employing these kinds of meth-
ods was unusual (and at times daunting!). The level of in-depth work required for
this kind of research has rarely permitted inclusion of a variety of schools in any
single study; instead, classroom ethnographies have generally presented detailed
data on the dynamics in one or two classrooms.
Building on a tradition of careful attention to the details of language from the
closely aligned fields of anthropological linguistics and sociolinguistics, classroom
ethnographies have provided compelling accounts of the powerful (and often not
readily apparent) effects of spoken exchanges in school. Researchers have focused
not only on the way language conveys ideas and content (often referred to as
“propositional” or “referential” information), but also on how it functions socially
and in expressing identity, asking questions such as: “How do patterns of language
use affect what counts as ‘knowledge,’ and what occurs as learning? How do these
patterns affect the equality, or inequality, of students’ educational opportunities?
What forms of communicative competence do these patterns presume and/or fos-
ter?”^3 This kind of careful work has helped to reveal how seemingly small linguis-
tic differences among speakers of different class, age, and ethnic identities can
contribute to failures in communication—failures that, in a classroom setting, can
have a powerful impact on students’ ability to learn and to absorb a sense of em-
powerment that might help them in future endeavors. Systematic comparisons
across kinds of schools and educational settings have been fairly small-scale, or have
involved bringing together results from different studies, given the labor-intensive
methodology involved.^4 This study created a comparison set by including class-
rooms from eight different law schools that vary by status. Where possible, I also
compare these data with results from other existing studies.
The method of transcript analysis employed here also builds on previous lin-
guistic studies in other kinds of social and, in particular, legal settings. Thus, for
example, O’Barr and Conley have analyzed the language of small claims courts,
demonstrating the ways litigants’ and judges’ “voices” frequently clash because of
differing orientations.^5 Their intriguing conclusion was that the very courts de-
signed to help the layperson have become favored sites for business people, whose
mastery of a more legal voice and orientation gave them a distinct advantage. Simi-
larly, Sarat and Felstiner, in their study of the language used in divorce lawyers’
offices, tracked the subtle process whereby lawyer and client negotiate and struggle