Justices and Attorneys as Discourse Communities: Using Ethnographic Procedures to Analyze Conversational Dynamics during Supreme Court Oral Arguments

Justices and Attorneys as Discourse Communities: Using Ethnographic Procedures to Analyze Conversational Dynamics during Supreme Court Oral Arguments

Oral arguments in the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) are a specialized and complex dialogue between justices and lawyers, and represent a key moment in the American judicial process. Like any verbal interaction, these debates are constructed collectively by their participants – in terms...

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Dans:URI:https://journals.openedition.org/asp,
Auteur principal: Guillerit, Margaux
Format: Article ou chapitre numérique
Langue:Anglais
Publié: ASp 2026
Sujets:
discourse analysis
discourse community
ethnographic procedures
oral arguments
Supreme Court
communauté de discours
analyse du discours
approche ethnographique
Cour suprême
Accès en ligne:Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM
Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM
id openedition-oai:revues.org:asp_11331
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spelling openedition-oai:revues.org:asp_11331 https://doi.org/10.4000/16ijx urn:doi:10.4000/16ijx en https://journals.openedition.org/asp/11331 2026-07-05T02:00:00Z info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess article info:eu-repo/semantics/article urn:handle:20.500.13089/16ijx https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ Justices and Attorneys as Discourse Communities: Using Ethnographic Procedures to Analyze Conversational Dynamics during Supreme Court Oral Arguments ASp Groupe d'étude et de recherche en anglais de spécialité info:eu-repo/semantics/reference/issn/2108-6354 info:eu-repo/semantics/reference/issn/1246-8185 URI:https://journals.openedition.org/asp Guillerit, Margaux discourse analysis discourse community ethnographic procedures oral arguments Supreme Court communauté de discours analyse du discours approche ethnographique oral arguments Cour suprême Oral arguments in the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) are a specialized and complex dialogue between justices and lawyers, and represent a key moment in the American judicial process. Like any verbal interaction, these debates are constructed collectively by their participants – in terms of content and interpersonal relationships – according to modalities and discursive strategies that evolve as the conversation unfolds. To account for these mechanisms in linguistic terms, studying transcripts of interactions at SCOTUS is not enough; researchers must supplement this approach by immersing themselves in the specialized domain and its discourse communities to comprehend all its dimensions, notably through interviews with practitioners. The ethnographic approach, although increasingly common in ESP, is rare in legal English studies. In this article, I therefore report on how interviews conducted with Supreme Court Bar attorneys enabled me to refine my understanding of the specialized discourse communities of SCOTUS and to provide a more in-depth analysis of the discursive mechanisms at play during oral arguments. Moment clé du processus juridique américain, les oral arguments sont une conversation spécialisée et complexe entre les juges de la Cour et les avocats des parties. En tant qu’interaction verbale, ces audiences sont construites collectivement par leurs participants (en termes de contenu et de relations interpersonnelles) selon des modalités et des stratégies discursives évoluant à mesure que l’échange se déroule. Pour rendre compte de ce fonctionnement, étudier les transcriptions des audiences n’est pas suffisant ; il convient de compléter cette approche par une immersion dans le domaine spécialisé et ses communautés de discours, notamment par des entretiens avec des spécialistes, selon une démarche ethnographique. Très répandue dans le champ de l’ASP, cette approche est cependant assez rare pour l’anglais juridique. Dans cet article, nous montrons comment des entretiens menés avec des avocats inscrits au Barreau de la Cour suprême nous ont permis de nuancer notre compréhension des communautés de discours spécialisées de la Cour et de parvenir à une description plus fine du fonctionnement discursif des oral arguments.
collection OpenEdition Journal
language Anglais
format Article ou chapitre numérique
building 0/Bibliothèque numérique/
1/Bibliothèque numérique/OpenEdition Journals/
topic discourse analysis
discourse community
ethnographic procedures
oral arguments
Supreme Court
communauté de discours
analyse du discours
approche ethnographique
oral arguments
Cour suprême
spellingShingle discourse analysis
discourse community
ethnographic procedures
oral arguments
Supreme Court
communauté de discours
analyse du discours
approche ethnographique
oral arguments
Cour suprême
Guillerit, Margaux
Justices and Attorneys as Discourse Communities: Using Ethnographic Procedures to Analyze Conversational Dynamics during Supreme Court Oral Arguments
description Oral arguments in the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) are a specialized and complex dialogue between justices and lawyers, and represent a key moment in the American judicial process. Like any verbal interaction, these debates are constructed collectively by their participants – in terms of content and interpersonal relationships – according to modalities and discursive strategies that evolve as the conversation unfolds. To account for these mechanisms in linguistic terms, studying transcripts of interactions at SCOTUS is not enough; researchers must supplement this approach by immersing themselves in the specialized domain and its discourse communities to comprehend all its dimensions, notably through interviews with practitioners. The ethnographic approach, although increasingly common in ESP, is rare in legal English studies. In this article, I therefore report on how interviews conducted with Supreme Court Bar attorneys enabled me to refine my understanding of the specialized discourse communities of SCOTUS and to provide a more in-depth analysis of the discursive mechanisms at play during oral arguments.
author Guillerit, Margaux
author_facet Guillerit, Margaux
author_sort Guillerit, Margaux
title Justices and Attorneys as Discourse Communities: Using Ethnographic Procedures to Analyze Conversational Dynamics during Supreme Court Oral Arguments
title_short Justices and Attorneys as Discourse Communities: Using Ethnographic Procedures to Analyze Conversational Dynamics during Supreme Court Oral Arguments
title_full Justices and Attorneys as Discourse Communities: Using Ethnographic Procedures to Analyze Conversational Dynamics during Supreme Court Oral Arguments
title_fullStr Justices and Attorneys as Discourse Communities: Using Ethnographic Procedures to Analyze Conversational Dynamics during Supreme Court Oral Arguments
title_full_unstemmed Justices and Attorneys as Discourse Communities: Using Ethnographic Procedures to Analyze Conversational Dynamics during Supreme Court Oral Arguments
title_sort justices and attorneys as discourse communities: using ethnographic procedures to analyze conversational dynamics during supreme court oral arguments
publisher ASp
publishDate 2026
container_title URI:https://journals.openedition.org/asp
url https://ezproxy.univ-orleans.fr/login?url=https://doi.org/10.4000/16ijx
https://ezproxy.univ-orleans.fr/login?url=https://journals.openedition.org/asp/11331
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