and 7.5, analyzing a single class in which professor and student in a modified Socratic class-
room coproduced a very smooth case narrative.) Of course, even in the more Socratic class-
rooms, there are many instances where students do not take their cues, and their voices
then emerge quite clearly as distinct from that of the professor. Alternatively, the goal of a
Socratic exchange might be to in fact draw forth several different voices, as when the pro-
fessor argues one position (say, the plaintiff’s) while asking the student to argue another
(perhaps the defendant’s). (Or different students may occupy these positions.) And then
there are the classrooms characterized more by shorter exchanges, in which a merry po-
lyphony of voices can sometimes be heard. (See Transcripts 7.8, 7.10, 7.11, and 7.12 for
examples of nonmonologic exchanges.) Interestingly, though, one could analyze some
segments of the more diffuse exchanges, involving multiple students, as coproduced mono-
logue—as when the professor provides a frame punctuated by questions that individual
students (or even the class as a whole) chime in to answer correctly in simple words or
phrases.
- Although there is some discussion of statutes (i.e., legislation passed by legisla-
tures such as Congress), regulations, and other legal genres, reading cases overwhelmingly
dominates the first-year classes of this study. We therefore primarily focus on the struc-
ture of the case law genre and core features of a legal reading thereof. Where relevant, I
also point out aspects of other genres, demonstrating that they indeed only accentuate
further the aspects of a legal reading outlined in our discussion of reading cases. On the
case law genre generally, see Mertz, “‘Realist’ Models,” “The Uses of History,” and “Con-
sensus and Dissent”; J. B. White, The Legal Imagination and When Words Lose Their Mean-
ing. In first-year Contracts classes, the Uniform Commercial Code is a common subject
for this kind of discussion, although professors vary considerably in the degree to which
they focus on the UCC. More advanced skills needed for reading the genre of statutes or
uniform laws (such as parsing legislative history) are generally reserved for upper-level
courses. - J. L. Austin, How to Do Things with Words. See Yovel, “Language beyond Law”
and “What Is Contract Law ‘About’?” for important discussions of performativity in legal
language. - This discussion of legal texts and readings relies on the linguistic data collected
for this study and presents structural features of the discursive logic of case law that are
commonly highlighted by professors. Thus, the organization of this part of the chapter
reflects the categories that emerge from linguistic analysis of the data, rather than the ca-
nonical order of the dissection of cases as it occurs in classes. As we will see, that ordering
is somewhat different, typically beginning with a recitation of the facts or procedural his-
tory, and then moving on to the legal issue and holding. - Black, Law Dictionary, 731.
- Note that this is a form of “intertexuality.”
- In Silverstein’s terms, the procedural history provides one kind of “interactional
text” for the reading of cases. Silverstein “Metapragmatic Discourse,” 36. Note that pro-
cedural history is only one variety of the interactional texts that can be found in legal opin-
ions. Insiders can read certain appellate opinions as expressions of power struggles among
competing judges or justices, as the products of negotiations among judges and clerks (who
write substantial portions of many decisions), as attempts to mediate political or social
struggles of various sorts, and so forth. - On the concept of a metalinguistic filter that interprets social change and sub-
tly impacts people’s worldviews, see Mertz, “No Burden to Carry” and “Sociolinguistic
Creativity.” - Levi, Introduction, 3–4.
Notes to Pages 60–63 247