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Language, Law, and Society: Policy Implications of the Kennedy Smith Rape Trial

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 April 2024

Gregory M. Matoesian
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Abstract

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In this article I examine the applied relevance of trial talk for rape shield legislation and attempts to evaluate the impact of such legal reforms. Using linguistic data from the Kennedy Smith rape trial, I argue that attempts to progressively implement rape shield have thus far failed and that research evaluating its impact has been more or less misguided because reformers and researchers have consistently failed to scrutinize empirically the interactional object to which rape shield legislation is applied: the language of evidence in testimony. Looking at the social construction of rape's legal facticity, I propose new methods of interpreting and evaluating legal reforms based on an understanding of language use and the performance of knowledge in context.

Type
Articles
Information
Law & Society Review , Volume 29 , Issue 4 , 1995 , pp. 669 - 701
Copyright
Copyright © 1995 by The Law and Society Association

Footnotes

Research for this article was supported by the University of Illinois at Chicago Campus Research Board, the UIC Office of Social Science Research, and the UIC Institute for the Humanities. I owe a very special debt of gratitude to Lisa Frohmann for numerous conversations dealing with this topic and to Roy Black for letting me take up his holiday. I also thank Wayne Kerstetter, Mindie Lazarus-Black, and the several anonymous reviewers for their detailed comments and advice.

References

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