Delivering justice

case study of a small claims court metadiscourse

Authors

  • Karen Tracy University of Colorado

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1558/ijsll.41592

Keywords:

metadiscourse, small claims court, website, judge discourse, grounded practical theory, legal–lay communication

Abstract

This study analyses an important but unstudied site of legal–lay communication: the website discourse of a small claims court. I describe six interactional problems that litigants in small claims court face that the official court metadiscourse, i.e., the court website, does not ably prepare participants for. Problems include: 1) addressees vary enormously in assumed education levels, 2) facework challenges misidentify focal parties, 3) the speech genre is more Q and A than a presentation, 4) limited attention is given to distinguishing fairness from legality, 5) the downside of extensive metadiscourse is not recognised and 6) the variety among judges is given little attention. These problems, I show, are shaped by the existence of two partly contradictory ideals embedded in the practice of small claims interaction, as well as the metadiscourse regarding what counts as good communication. One ideal of small claims court is to see it as a place where disputes can be addressed fairly by an impartial arbitrator. The other ideal is to see small claims as a place where legal rules are applied to disputes to yield a legal solution. The article concludes with suggestions about how to manage the competing ideals.

Author Biography

  • Karen Tracy, University of Colorado

    Karen Tracy (PhD, University of Wisconsin) is emerita professor of communication at the University of Colorado. She investigates face and identity problems in institutional sites of justice and governance. Most recently she is the author of Discourse, Identity and Social Change in the Marriage Equality Debates (2016, Oxford University Press) and Grounded Practical Theory: Investigating Communication Problems (with Robert Craig, 2021, Cognella). Her current project is investigating the challenges jurors confront from responding to questions during voir dire to their courtroom sense-making to deliberating as a group.

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Published

2021-05-21

Issue

Section

Articles

How to Cite

Tracy, K. (2021). Delivering justice: case study of a small claims court metadiscourse. International Journal of Speech, Language and the Law, 27(2), 181-208. https://doi.org/10.1558/ijsll.41592