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Observing Supreme Court Oral Argument: A Biosocial Approach

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 May 2016

James N. Schubert ,
Steven A. Peterson ,
Glendon Schubert  and
Stephen Wasby
James N. Schubert
Affiliation:
Northern Illinois University, USA
Steven A. Peterson
Affiliation:
Alfred University, USA
Glendon Schubert
Affiliation:
University of Hawaii/Southern Illinois University, USA
Stephen Wasby
Affiliation:
State University of New York at Albany, USA

Abstract

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Supreme Court oral argument (OA) is one of many face-to-face settings of political interaction. This article describes a methodology for the systematic observation and measurement of behavior in OA developed in a study of over 300 randomly selected cases from the 1969-1981 terms of the U.S. Supreme Court. Five sources of observation are integrated into the OA database at the speaking turn level of analysis: the actual text of verbal behavior; categorical behavior codes; aspects of language use and speech behavior events; electro-acoustical measurement of voice quality; and content analysis of subject matter. Preliminary data are presented to illustrate the methodology and its application to theoretical concerns of the research project.

Type
Articles
Information
Politics and the Life Sciences , Volume 11 , Issue 1 , February 1992 , pp. 35 - 52
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Politics and the Life Sciences 

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