Abstract
Court reporters are charged by law with the duty of making verbatim transcriptions of legal proceedings. The necessary presumption behind this task is that an accurate record of an oral/acted event can be made by writing down exactly what was said. But in any movement from the oral to the written, certain discrepancies between the original event and its written representation are bound to occur, discrepancies which are traceable not merely to inherent differences between spoken and written language, but in the case of court reporting, to the cultural and professional climates in which reporters do their jobs. Perhaps most particularly, discrepancies occur because of the intersection of beliefs which reporters hold about language and about their profession.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Aurelio, S. J. (1988). Why the record must be verbatim. National Shorthand Reporter, 49(4), 34–37.
Ballentine’s Law Dictionary (3d ed.). (1969). Rochester, NY: The Lawyers Cooperative Publishing Company.
Bieber, S. (1976). Let verbatim be your guide. National Shorthand Reporter, 37(7), 27–29.
Black’s Law Dictionary (Revised 4th ed.). St. Paul, MN: West Publishing Company.
“Bloopers of the month (Tape Division).” (1984). National Shorthand Reporter, 45(10), 56.
Budlong, P E. (1983). Editing court proceedings and speeches. In English (pp. 4–14). Vienna, VA: National Shorthand Reporters Association.
Catford, J. C. (1965). A linguistic theory of translation. London: Oxford University Press.
Chafe, W. L. (1982). Integration and involvement in speaking, writing, and oral literature. In D. Tannen (Ed.), Spoken and written language (pp. 35–53). Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
Conley, J. M., O’Barr, W. M., & Lind, E. A. (1978). The power of language: Presentational style in the courtroom. Duke Law Journal, 6, 1375–1399.
Court Reporters Manual. (1981). North Dakota Supreme Court.
English. Professional Education Series. (1983). Vienna, VA: National Shorthand Reporters Association.
Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure. (1975). Mineola, NY: The Foundation Press, Inc.
Gilman, M. L. (1982). Our native idiom. National Shorthand Reporter, 43(6), 31.
Goldfluss, H. E. (1981). The judicious partnership. National Shorthand Reporter, 42(4), 21–23.
Greenwood, J. M., Horney, J., Jacoubovitch, M.-D., Lowenstein, E B., & Wheeler, R. R. (1983). A comparative evaluation of stenographic and audiotape methods for U. S. District Court Reporting. Washington, DC: Federal Judicial Center.
Gustafson, C. (1977). Between Scylla and Charybdis. National Shorthand Reporter, 38(5), 16–17.
Labov, W. (1966). The social stratification of English in New York City. Washington, DC: Center for Applied Linguistics.
Lakoff, R. T. (1982). Some of my favorite writers are literate: The mingling of oral and literate strategies in written communication. In D. Tannen (Ed.), Spoken and written language: Exploring orality and literacy (pp. 239–260). Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
Laver, J., & Trudgill, P. (1979). Phonetic and linguistic markers in speech. In K. R. Scherer & H. Giles (Eds.), Social markers in speech (pp. 1–32). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Lavery, U. A. (1923). Punctuation in the law. American Bar Association Journal, 9, 225–228.
Lieberman, P (1963). Some effects of semantic and grammatical context on the production and perception of speech. Language and Speech, 6, 172–187.
Louisell, D. W., & Pirsig, M. E. (1953). The significance of verbatim recording of proceedings in American adjudication. Minnesota Law Review, 38 (1), 29–45.
Making the record. (1976). National Shorthand Reporters Association.
Manual for court reporter si recorders. (1981). State Court Administrative Office. Lansing, MI: Author.
Mellinkoff, D. (1963). The language of the law. Boston: Little, Brown.
Morphy, A. N. (1959). How to be a court reporter. Bayonne, NJ: Pengad Companies.
O’Barr, W. M., & Conley, J. (1976). When a juror watches a lawyer. Barrister, 3 (3), 8–11, 33.
Ochs, E. (1979). Transcription as theory. In E. Ochs & B. B. Schiefflin (Eds.), Developmental pragmatics (pp. 43–71). New York: Academic Press.
Olson, D. R. (1977). From utterance to text: The bias of language in speech and writing. Harvard Educational Review, 47, 257–281.
“One reporter’s favorites.” (1989). National Shorthand Reporter, 50(3), 79.
Ong, W. J. (1967). The presence of the word. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Ong, W. J. (1979). Literacy and orality in our times. Profession, 79, 1–7.
Philips, S. U. (1982). The language socialization of lawyers: Acquiring the “cant.” In G. Spindler (Ed.), Doing the ethnography of schooling (pp. 176–209). New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.
Ramshaw, R (1977). “Auditory Discrimination”: A tough subject—even for reporters. Caligrams, November 6–7.
Sanders, R. (1988). Technology and the politics of change. Oregon State Bar Bulletin, 48(10), 5–14.
Stryker, L. P. (1954). The art of advocacy. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Swem, C. L. (1984). Stopping the Witness. National Shorthand Reporter, 45 (4), 66–68.
Tannen, D. (1980). Implications of the oral/literate continuum for cross-cultural communication. Georgetown University Round Table on Languages and Linguistics 1980. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.
Tannen, D. (Ed.). (1982). Spoken and written language: Exploring orality and literacy. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
Tannen, D. (Ed.). (1984). Coherence in spoken and written discourse. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
Tannen, D., & Saville-Troike, M. (Eds.). (1985). Perspectives on silence. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
The American Heritage Dictionary, College Edition. (1975). New York: American Heritage Publishing Co., Inc. & Houghton Mifflin Company.
“Unhappiness grows with videotape for the record.” (1989). National Shorthand Reporter, 50(8), 18.
“Video-recording evaluation and guidebook development.” (1988). National Center for State Courts Application, February 4, 1988. Williamsburg, VA.
Walker, A. G. (1981). Transcription conventions: Do they matter? A sociolinguistic study of a legal process. Unpublished master’s thesis, Georgetown University.
Walker, A. G. (1982). Patterns and implications of cospeech in a legal setting. In R. J. DiPietro (Ed.), Linguistics and the professions (pp. 101–112). Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
Walker, A. G. (1985). From oral to written: The “verbatim” transcription of legal proceedings. (Doctoral dissertation, Georgetown University).
Walker, A. G. (1986). Context, transcripts and appellate readers. JQ, 3(4), 409–427.
Walker, A. G. (1988). Court reporting: Another kind of interpretation. Paper presented at the International Conference for Translators & Interpreters, May 28–29, 1988, Arlington, VA.
Waltz, J. R., & Kaplan, D. (1983). Evidence: Making the record. Mineola, NY: Foundation Press, Inc.
Weiss, N. (1971). Punctuation for shorthand reporters. Vienna, VA: National Shorthand Reporters Association.
Whitford, W. (1898). Defective hearing or mishearing in its relation to shorthand writing. The Phonographic Magazine. Reprinted in National Shorthand Reporter (1982), 43(3), 46–49.
“Witness encouraged to edit.” (1989). National Shorthand Reporter, 50(3), 116.
Wolfe, Tom. (1979) The right stuff. New York: Bantam.
Woods, W. A. (1980). Multiple theory formation in speech and reading. In R. J. Spiro, B. C. Bruce, & W. F. Brewer (Eds.), Theoretical issues in reading and comprehension (pp. 59–82). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
8. Cases Cited
Am. Fruit v. Avis, 118 Ga. App. 840 (1968).
Caffrey v. Chem-lonics Corp., 419 P.2d 809 (1966).
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania v. Stufflet, 419 A.2d 184 (1980).
Cushing v. Worrick, 75 Mass. 382 (1857).
Hardy v. United States, 375 U.S. 277 (1964).
In re D.L.F., 176 N.W2d 486 (S.D. 1970).
Mondani v. Cuneo, 1 C.A. 3d 1008 (1969).
Palmer v. State, 312 So. 2d 399 (CCA Ala 1975).
Sanders v. State, 344 So.2d 1243 (CCA Ala 1977).
State v. Carter, 182 E2d 90 (S.C Ariz 1947).
State v. Martinez, 644 P 2d 541 (1982).
State v. Milwaukee County, 222 N.W 2d 592 (S.C. WI 1974).
State v. Perkins, 120 N.W. 62 (1909).
United States v. Cabra, 622 F.2d 182 (5th Cir. 1980).
United States v. Hodges, 556 F.2d 1283 (7th Cir. 1977).
United States v. Perkins, 498 E2d 1054 (D.C Cir. 1974).
United States v. Piasik, 559 F.2d 545 (9th Cir. 1977).
United States v. Robinson, 459 F.2d 1164 (D.C. 1972).
United States v. Taylor, 303 E2d 165 (4th Cir. 1962).
United States v. Workcuff, 422 F.2d 700 (D.C 1970).
Williams v. United States, 338 F.2d 286 (D.C. 1964).
9. Statutes Cited
28 U.S.C. § 753(b) (1976). Revised under the Federal Courts Improvement Act of 1982, Public Law 970–164, § 401, 96 Stat. 25, 56–57 (1982).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1990 Springer Science+Business Media New York
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Walker, A.G. (1990). Language at Work in the Law. In: Levi, J.N., Walker, A.G. (eds) Language in the Judicial Process. Law, Society and Policy, vol 5. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-3719-3_7
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-3719-3_7
Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA
Print ISBN: 978-1-4899-3721-6
Online ISBN: 978-1-4899-3719-3
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive