How the Language Style of Small Claims Court Judges Does Ideological Work

• In Event: Language Use in Small Claims Court, Public Meetings, Consultations for Over-the-Counter Medicines, and Health Information Consumers' Online Comments

Abstract

Small claims courts were created to help ordinary people settle small disputes quickly and cheaply. To make non-lawyer folks feel comfortable, small claims trials were designed to relax legal rules and be relatively informal. A consequence of the justice system’s commitment to informality is that small claims trials exhibit significant variation. A small claims trial in Court A with Judge X can be quite different from a trial in Court B with Judge Y. After overviewing the different ways language/discourse styles and ideology have been conceptualized, we provide background on small claims court and describe the data. The centerpiece of this paper is an analysis of three cases taken from judges in different small claims courts. We show that judges vary in how they: (1) open a trial and frame what they will be doing, (2) announce and justify their decision, and (3) question litigants and solicit their stories. In concluding, we suggest how the style manifested by a judge accomplishes ideological work, instantiating different understanding of justice and what a reasonable relationship between ordinary disputants and the state should be.

Authors

• Karen Tracy, U of Colorado

• Mary Caron, University of Colorado