Learning to Read Like a Lawyer 47when the written script of a play is performed. In performances, it becomes quite
clear that the meaning of written text is conveyed not only through the semantic
content of the words, but also through myriad linguistic features connecting the
text to contexts^14 (frequently to prior contexts as well as to the current one). These
features can be as subtle as a shift in intonation patterns or as an attitude conveyed
through facial expressions. We can all think of examples in which the “same” word
can carry quite divergent meanings in different recontextualizations; thus, it be-
comes vital to examine the different social functions that the “same” text might
be serving.
To make the point more vivid, let us take as an example several possible read-
ings of a seemingly identical written text—in semantic terms, the same words.
Imagine, for example, a high school teacher intoning with reverence to his class in
2006 the phrase “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created
equal.” Here the performance of an important written political text in the United
States conveys a meaning that is only partially dependent on the abstract meaning
or content of the words.^15 Who, for example, is the “we” here? What does the use
of the present tense “hold” and “are” mean when repeated in this way in this time?
The meaning of the written text in this context depends in part on the role of the
speaker (teacher), the situational context (a classroom), the purpose of the speak-
ing (didactic, and in a sense political), and on many verbal cues indicating that the
utterance is to be taken seriously—not to mention many other aspects of the con-
text as well. It also depends on a relationship between this context and prior con-
texts—minimally, the context in which the original version of this political text
was written, but also the ongoing contexts that contributed (through history and
in the audience’s lives) to its current cultural valence. Implicit in the way that the
context of the first writing is invoked (or indexed), there may be a profound mes-
sage about a perceived continuity between the original authors and the current
readers, an assumed mingled identity in the word “we.”^16 (There are likely also many
other assumptions invoked here about the relationships among text and various
contexts: for example, about the relationship between elites and all of “the people,”
and about the use of written text to embody timeless political ideals.) Through his
performance of the text, the teacher may be viewed as attempting to impart core
values of the polity to which he and his students belong.
Imagine now the identical words being repeated by a professor of history whose
great-grandparents were slaves and who has just described to her graduate students
aspects of slaves’ lives on plantations in the southern United States; picture her
repeating these words with angry irony, perhaps, or as an impassioned plea. Do
the words mean the same thing as when they were uttered in our first example?
Now who is the “we,” and what does the phrase “all men” mean? What are the
messages about the authority of the original authors, about inclusion or mingled
identity, about atemporal ideals embodied in political texts, about the just or noble
character of the polity, about democracy?
In one sense, we could say that the words say the same thing in both of these
contexts, that a reduced core meaning is arguably conveyed in both cases. The words
may in each case be understood to express a core aspiration for the American pol-
ity, and that aspiration could be roughly summarized as a democratic one: that all