Seminar on Original Meaning: Linguistic Analysis of Legal Texts
Class One (Wed, Jan 13, 4:10 – 5:50 pm – via Zoom)
Please check your GSU email account for email from instructor with Zoom log in information or check the course iCollege home page.
Assignments:
- Students Present New Insights on Original Meaning of Constitution to Judges using “Big Data” of Corpus Linguistics, GSU College of Law News, May 21, 2018 (https://news.gsu.edu/corpus-linguistics)
- Aaron Blake, A big Trump case hinges on the definition of ‘emoluments.’ A new study has bad news for him (Washington Post Jan 29, 2019)
- Law Journal Editorial Board, On Language, Lawyers and Judges Don't Have All the Answers (March 22, 2019)
- Analyzing Legal Discourse in the United States (22 pages), read at: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3554023.
- Amicus Brief (original meaning of “emolument”), Blumenthal v. Trump (D.C. Cir. Filed Oct. 8, 2019) Read abstract and pp 1-27 of brief (pp 9-35 as filed) at : https://ssrn.com/abstract=3475650 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3475650
- Create a free account at Law & Corpus Linguistics: BYU Law to use Corpus of Founding Era American English - COFEA
(complete this before class)
Each of these three assignments will be discussed in class – first in Zoom break-out groups and then in the whole class.
- Discussion Assignment One: Controlling conduct with constitutional text (whether to remove the President under 25th amendment)
- Discussion Assignment Two: Interpreting constitutional text (what is “treason” in the impeachment clause?)
- Discussion Assignment Three: Linguistic drift – or what in the world does this mean? (meaning of “Office of honor, Trust, or Profit under the United States” in case of impeachment).