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Just Words: Law, Language, and Power, Third Edition
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.
John M. Conley, William M. O'Barr, and Robin Conley Riner 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, Just Words 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.
John M. Conley, William M. O'Barr, and Robin Conley Riner 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, Just Words 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.
264 pages, Paperback
First published August 1, 1998
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
July 27, 2026
I really enjoyed this! I mean I had a feeling I would considering this intersection of fields has been on interest of mine for some time and I took a course on Language and Law this past semester. But I liked this book because it was written at a level for people outside of either field to understand its content. That goal—the readability and comprehensibility—was their driving mission across all chapters (not to ignore the authors' other goal of understanding law's language in relation to its power). Below are some favorite lines from the Text (but trust that there are more on a document buried deep in the cloud)
“A way of talking about something is also a way of thinking about it.” (21)
“Every time the law’s linguistic practice is reenacted, the patriarchy of its macrodiscourse—that is, the way things are thought about and acted upon—is reaffirmed.” (76)
“The law exerts its power to demand a particular framing of the dispute...‘The law,’ of course, is not in itself an anthropomorphic being that listens and responds. Rather, the entity we call the law manifests itself in the behaviour of legal officials.” (92)
“Comparisons are inevitably infected by the epistemological biases of the analyst” (103)
“Language ideologies are bridges between sociocultural experiences of speakers and the ways in which they actually speak.” (128)
“By making context a starting point rather than an afterthought, language ideology scholars remind us that we cannot usefully study how people practice language without paying attention to how they think about it.” (139)
“But is it the job of science to be hopeful and helpful?” (154)
“Law has usually been treated as a matter of words. Studies of language in general have historically focused on the verbal components of communication (spoken or written words), often treating the vast array of other phenomena that contribute to meaning-making in interaction as separable from or irrelevant to language...The issue resides in part in how one defines language.” (157)
“All vision is perspectival and situated within particular communities of practice (Goodwin 1994:606).” (161)
“The real difficulty lies in how to fit aspects of multimodal interaction into a workable legal conception of evidence.” (169)
“Through his use of silence, deixis, and other linguistic strategies that Slobe documents, West [attorney] repeatedly—whether consciously or not—drives home the arguments that language reflects culture and cultures differ in their moral worth.” (185)
“As law professors use language to socialize their students, they are simultaneously distancing the students from the social contexts from which they emerged.” (196)
“An entire subfield, critical discourse analysis, now focuses on ‘the way social power abuse, dominance, and inequality are enacted, reproduced, and resisted by text and talk’ (Van Dijk 2003:353).” (199)
“Promote a fuller integration of {law and language} into {law and society} scholarship…both have emphasized the effect of variation…{law and society} has argued that these kinds of variation have affected access to justice. {Law and language} has documented how such variation manifests itself in the linguistic practice of the legal system, inviting judgments about political significance. If this book succeeds, it will remind each of these research traditions of its need for the other.” (200)
“A way of talking about something is also a way of thinking about it.” (21)
“Every time the law’s linguistic practice is reenacted, the patriarchy of its macrodiscourse—that is, the way things are thought about and acted upon—is reaffirmed.” (76)
“The law exerts its power to demand a particular framing of the dispute...‘The law,’ of course, is not in itself an anthropomorphic being that listens and responds. Rather, the entity we call the law manifests itself in the behaviour of legal officials.” (92)
“Comparisons are inevitably infected by the epistemological biases of the analyst” (103)
“Language ideologies are bridges between sociocultural experiences of speakers and the ways in which they actually speak.” (128)
“By making context a starting point rather than an afterthought, language ideology scholars remind us that we cannot usefully study how people practice language without paying attention to how they think about it.” (139)
“But is it the job of science to be hopeful and helpful?” (154)
“Law has usually been treated as a matter of words. Studies of language in general have historically focused on the verbal components of communication (spoken or written words), often treating the vast array of other phenomena that contribute to meaning-making in interaction as separable from or irrelevant to language...The issue resides in part in how one defines language.” (157)
“All vision is perspectival and situated within particular communities of practice (Goodwin 1994:606).” (161)
“The real difficulty lies in how to fit aspects of multimodal interaction into a workable legal conception of evidence.” (169)
“Through his use of silence, deixis, and other linguistic strategies that Slobe documents, West [attorney] repeatedly—whether consciously or not—drives home the arguments that language reflects culture and cultures differ in their moral worth.” (185)
“As law professors use language to socialize their students, they are simultaneously distancing the students from the social contexts from which they emerged.” (196)
“An entire subfield, critical discourse analysis, now focuses on ‘the way social power abuse, dominance, and inequality are enacted, reproduced, and resisted by text and talk’ (Van Dijk 2003:353).” (199)
“Promote a fuller integration of {law and language} into {law and society} scholarship…both have emphasized the effect of variation…{law and society} has argued that these kinds of variation have affected access to justice. {Law and language} has documented how such variation manifests itself in the linguistic practice of the legal system, inviting judgments about political significance. If this book succeeds, it will remind each of these research traditions of its need for the other.” (200)
January 25, 2024
Очень плотные тексты: каждая глава по 20 страниц, но на главу уходит по 3 часа. Своего рода хэндбук по социолингвистике (как используется язык во время судебных разбирательств разного рода): обо всем понемножку. Возможно, для специалистов будет поверхностно, но для меня это была новая перспектива, которая абсолютно меня заворожила и зажгла. Я прочитала семь глав из десяти, и по каждой из них у меня есть подробный конспект, а такое случается нечасто!
Мне еще понравилось, что они выявляют методами социолингвистики какую-то огромную проблему, а потом предлагают ее решение, и благодаря этому есть ощущение следующего шага, нет (почти) отчаяния.
Абсолютный мастрид, если хочется кому-то объяснить, чем интересна социолингвистика и почему стоит ее спонсировать.
Мне еще понравилось, что они выявляют методами социолингвистики какую-то огромную проблему, а потом предлагают ее решение, и благодаря этому есть ощущение следующего шага, нет (почти) отчаяния.
Абсолютный мастрид, если хочется кому-то объяснить, чем интересна социолингвистика и почему стоит ее спонсировать.
May 29, 2014
This was a really good book, that covered a range of different topics, but consistently maintaining a linguistic perspective. There were lots of examples and the analyses/discussions went into depth. Would recommend this book!
January 2, 2015
An accessible but linguistically focused study of a range of legal topics. Personally, I would have preferred greater in-depth analysis of court transcripts as opposed to the broader theoretical debates on legal anthropological studies but that doesn't detract from an engaging and perceptive text.
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November 8, 2012helped me a lot in my dissertation concerning a lawyers perspective on courtroom language ... Good detailed studies and also a good read ... Perfect
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews