Abstract
In contrast to the traditional depiction of lawyers as providing loyal disinterested service to clients, analysis of one lawyer-client interaction in a legal aid office revealed that the lawyer used language to control the client's presentation of the case, and to define it in terms of convenience to the organization rather than the expressed wishes of the client. Three types of linguistic strategies relating to the control of talk were examined: (1) management of structural features; (2) choice of instrumentality; and (3) Management of interactional features. Structural strategies of interruptions and topic control served to display the lawyer's expertise, while preventing the client from enhancing his status. The form of the directives controlled the client's responses, forcing him to react to the lawyer's assertions rather than serving as the primary source of information, while the use of performatives and other elements of the formal register served to highlight the lawyer's control. Frequent challenges to the client's adherence to the maxim of quality by the use of repetitions, requests for outside confirmation, reformulations, repeat questions without waiting for a reply, and unfounded presuppositions combined with the other features to establish a dialogue that is very much like cross-examination.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 249-275 |
| Number of pages | 27 |
| Journal | Text |
| Volume | 4 |
| Issue number | 1-3 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - 1984 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:This research was carried out with the support of Ford Foundation grant number 10, administered by the Israel Foundation Trustees. This study is part of a larger research project comparing lawyer-client interactions in legal aid and private practice settings, which is the subject of the doctoral dissertation of the first author. Weare grateful to Richard Abel, Marshall Breger and Marc Galanter for their useful suggestions on the socio-legal aspects of the study, and to Shoshana Blum-Kulka and Robert Cooper for all the time they devoted to discussions of the linguistic issues. We would also like to thank the staff of the Legal Aid office and especially the director of Legal Aid in Israel, Dr. Sara Bar-Sela, for their help and cooperation. The dependence of law on language has been of interest to students of law in the past, mainly äs a philosophical problem (e.g. Bishin and Stone, 1972; Probert, 1972). More recent empirically oriented work examines how language regulates human affairs, and how communication processes in the handling of cases have important consequences for individuals and groups. See Danet (1980) for a review of the issues involved in the study of language and the legal process, and for a comprehensive bibliography of the subject. As a justification for this approach, we rely on Labov and Fanshel (1977) who 'expanded' their analysis of the talk by taking into account non-textual knowledge of the Situation and the socio-cultural norms of the participants. By law, legal aid is extended to the majority of civil, non commercialcases. Criminal cases are not handled by Legal Aid; neither are commercial matters such äs partnerships, patent recording, etc., although debts, reclamations and confiscations are represented. For lack of space, the transcript of this interview, translated into English, is not included here, but may be obtained by writing to the authors. This extract is also an example of a left-dislocated item placed in an initial position to facilitate or legitimate overlaps and competition for floor (see Ochs, 1978). For conventions used in the transliteration of Hebrew see Danet (this issue: Figure 1). Requests for clarification, confirmation and elicitations are dealt with separately in our analysis because specific forms are associated with these requests. Space limitations prevented us from presenting these results. See Bogoch and Danet (1982) for the complete report. House and Kasper (1981) have indicated that German Speakers are more direct than Speakers of English, and Blum-Kulka (in press) has noted that bilingual Hebrew-English Speakers used the more direct form of requests when speaking Hebrew than English. The image of the Israeli äs a direct, blunt Speaker may be reflected in the frequency of the imperatives used in this conversation, but we have no data on the frequency of imperatives in other conversational situations in Hebrew. However, the fact that the client never made a request for action, and never used the im-
Funding
This research was carried out with the support of Ford Foundation grant number 10, administered by the Israel Foundation Trustees. This study is part of a larger research project comparing lawyer-client interactions in legal aid and private practice settings, which is the subject of the doctoral dissertation of the first author. Weare grateful to Richard Abel, Marshall Breger and Marc Galanter for their useful suggestions on the socio-legal aspects of the study, and to Shoshana Blum-Kulka and Robert Cooper for all the time they devoted to discussions of the linguistic issues. We would also like to thank the staff of the Legal Aid office and especially the director of Legal Aid in Israel, Dr. Sara Bar-Sela, for their help and cooperation. The dependence of law on language has been of interest to students of law in the past, mainly äs a philosophical problem (e.g. Bishin and Stone, 1972; Probert, 1972). More recent empirically oriented work examines how language regulates human affairs, and how communication processes in the handling of cases have important consequences for individuals and groups. See Danet (1980) for a review of the issues involved in the study of language and the legal process, and for a comprehensive bibliography of the subject. As a justification for this approach, we rely on Labov and Fanshel (1977) who 'expanded' their analysis of the talk by taking into account non-textual knowledge of the Situation and the socio-cultural norms of the participants. By law, legal aid is extended to the majority of civil, non commercialcases. Criminal cases are not handled by Legal Aid; neither are commercial matters such äs partnerships, patent recording, etc., although debts, reclamations and confiscations are represented. For lack of space, the transcript of this interview, translated into English, is not included here, but may be obtained by writing to the authors. This extract is also an example of a left-dislocated item placed in an initial position to facilitate or legitimate overlaps and competition for floor (see Ochs, 1978). For conventions used in the transliteration of Hebrew see Danet (this issue: Figure 1). Requests for clarification, confirmation and elicitations are dealt with separately in our analysis because specific forms are associated with these requests. Space limitations prevented us from presenting these results. See Bogoch and Danet (1982) for the complete report. House and Kasper (1981) have indicated that German Speakers are more direct than Speakers of English, and Blum-Kulka (in press) has noted that bilingual Hebrew-English Speakers used the more direct form of requests when speaking Hebrew than English. The image of the Israeli äs a direct, blunt Speaker may be reflected in the frequency of the imperatives used in this conversation, but we have no data on the frequency of imperatives in other conversational situations in Hebrew. However, the fact that the client never made a request for action, and never used the im-
| Funders | Funder number |
|---|---|
| Israel Foundation Trustees | |
| Ford Foundation |