Downloads

Many of my papers and articles are available in electronic format from the Social Science Research Network

My home page on ssrn (with list of all publications)



The Rule of Text: Is it Possible to Govern Using (Only) Statutes?

Language Policy in the United States

The Origins of Legal Language

The Textualization of Precedent


Some Myths about Legal Language

Communicating with Juries: How to Draft More Understandable Jury Instructions

Asking Jurors to Do the Impossible


Redrafting California's Jury Instructions

Testing the Comprehensibility of Jury Instructions: California's Old and New Instructions on Circumstantial Evidence
(co-authored with Mathew Curtis)

What is Language and Law? And Does Anyone Care?

Did Clinton Lie?: Defining 'Sexual Relations'

Writing, Text, and the Law

The New Black's

Language Wars Truce Accepted (with Conditions)

Cops and Robbers: Selective Literalism in American Criminal Law
(co-authored with Lawrence Solan)


You can also obtain an online (pdf) version of my manual on drafting plain language jury instructions from the National Center for State Courts.


Offprints

The following offprints of articles are available in hard copy to anyone who is interested, free of charge.  Please email your request to Peter.Tiersma@lls.edu.  Be sure to include your name, affiliation (if any) and an ordinary (not electronic) mailing address, along with request for a maximum of three offprints.

The Textualization of Precedent
Some Myths About Legal Language
Language Wars Truce Accepted (with Conditions)

The New Black’s
Hearing Voices: Speaker Identification in American Courts (with Lawrence Solan)
A Message in a Bottle: Text, Autonomy, and Statutory Interpretation
The Linguist on the Witness Stand: Forensic Linguistics in American Courts (with Lawrence Solan)
The Language of Silence
The Rocky Road to Legal Reform: Improving the Language of Jury Instructions
The Judge as Linguist
Dictionaries and Death: Do Capital Jurors Understand Mitigation?
Reforming the Language of Jury Instructions
Reassessing Unilateral Contracts


A (fairly) complete list of my publications:
(sorry-these are not available for free, unless included in the list above)

LEGAL BOOKS

The Oxford Handbook on Language and Law (co-edited with Lawrence Solan) (in preparation).

Parchment, Paper, Pixels: Law and the Technologies of Communication (University of Chicago Press, 2010).

Speaking of Crime: The Language of Criminal Justice (with Lawrence Solan) (University of Chicago Press, 2005).

Legal Language (University of Chicago Press, 1999; paperback edition published in April, 2000).


LEGAL ARTICLES

Redrafting California’s Jury Instructions, in The Routledge Handbook of Forensic Linguistics 251 (Malcolm Coulthard and Alison Johnson, eds.).  London: Routledge, 2010.

Asking Jurors To Do the Impossible.  5 Tenn. J. Law & Policy 105 (2009).

What is Language and Law? And Does Anyone Care?, in Law and Language: Theory and Society (Frances Olsen, Alexander Lorz, & Dieter Stein eds., 2008).

Testing the Comprehension of Jury Instructions: California’s Old and New Instructions on Circumstantial Evidence, 1 J. Court Innovation 231 (2008) (with Mathew Curtis).

The Nature of Legal Language, in Dimensions of Forensic Linguistics (John Gibbons and M. Teresa Turell eds., 2008).

Writing, Text, and the Law, in Handbook of Research on Writing 129 (Charles Bazerman ed. 2008).

The Language of Consent in Rape Law, in The Language of Sexual Crime (Janet Cotterill ed. 2007).

The Textualization of Precedent, 82 Notre Dame L. Rev. 1187 (2007)

Communicating with Juries: How to Draft More Understandable Jury Instructions (Published as a booklet by the National Center for State Courts and distributed to judges nationwide in 2006).  Also available in The Scribes Journal of Legal Writing, vol. 10, No. 1.

Some Myths About Legal Language, 2 Law, Culture and Humanities 29 (2006).

 
The Language Of Legal Texts, in Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics (2nd Ed., Keith Brown (ed.), 2006).

 
The New Black’s, 55 J. Legal Education 386 (2005).

 
Language Wars Truce Accepted (with Conditions), 8 Green Bag 2d 281 (2005).

 
Categorical Lists in the Law, in Vagueness in Normative Texts (Vijay K. Bhatia, Jan Engberg, Maurizio Gotti, and Dorothee Heller eds., 2005).

Cops and Robbers: Selective Literalism in American Criminal Law, 38 Law and Society Review 229 (2004) (coauthored with Lawrence Solan).

Did Clinton Lie?  Defining ”Sexual Relations,” 79 Chicago Kent Law Review 927 (2004)

Jury Questions: An Update to Kalven and Zeisel, 39 Criminal Law Bulletin 10 (2003).

Hearing Voices: Speaker Identification in American Courts,  54 Hastings Law Journal 373 (2003) (coauthored with Lawrence Solan).

From Speech to Writing: Textualization and its Consequences, in Language and the Law: Proceedings of a Conference (Marlyn Robinson 2003).

The Language and Law of Product Warnings, in Language in the Legal Process 54 (Janet Cotterill ed., 2002).

The Linguist on the Witness Stand: Forensic Linguistics in American Courts,  78 Language  221 (2002) (coauthored with Lawrence Solan).

A Message in a Bottle: Text, Autonomy, and Statutory Interpretation, 76 Tulane Law Review 431 (2001).

Textualizing the Law, 8:2 Forensic Linguistics 73 (2001).

The Rocky Road to Legal Reform: Improving the Language of Jury Instructions, 66 Brooklyn Law Review 1081 (2001).

A Missed Opportunity: United States Supreme Court Upholds a Convoluted Death Penalty Instruction, 46 Clarity 20 (2001).

Jury Instructions in the New Millennium, 36 Court Review 28 (Summer 1999).

The Language of Silence, 48 Rutgers Law Review 1 (1995).

The Ambiguity of Interpretation: Distinguishing Interpretation from Construction, 73 Washington Law Quarterly 1095 (1995).

Dictionaries and Death: Do Capital Jurors Understand Mitigation?, 1995 Utah Law Review 1.

Reforming the Language of Jury Instructions, 22 Hofstra Law Review 37 (1993).

Nonverbal Communication and the Freedom of "Speech". 1993 Wisconsin Law Review 1525.

The Judge as Linguist.  27 Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review 269 (1993).

Linguistic Issues in the Law. 69 Language: Journal of the Linguistic Society of America 113 (1993).

Reassessing Unilateral Contracts.  26 U.C. Davis Law Review 1 (1992).

    Portions reprinted in Randy E. Barnett, Perspectives on Contract Law (1995)

The Language of Perjury: "Literal Truth," Ambiguity and the False Statement Requirement.  63 Southern California Law Review 373 (1990).

    Reprinted in 3 Criminal Practice Law Review 37 (1990).

Rites of Passage: Legal Ritual in Roman Law and Anthropological Analogues.  9 Journal of Legal History 1 (1988).

The Language of Defamation.  66 Texas Law Review 303 (1987).

The Language of Offer and Acceptance: Speech Acts and the Question of Intent.  74 California Law Review 189﷓232 (1986).     

    Portions reprinted in Bruce E. Altschuler & Celia A. Sgroi, Understanding Law in a Changing Society (1992).

    Portions reprinted in Richard Craswell & Alan Schwartz, Foundations in Contract Law (1994).

 
SIGNIFICANT BRIEFS

Brief Amicus Curiae for the Linguistic Society of America in the Alaska Supreme Court case, Kritz v. Alaskans for a Common Language (2003).

Brief Amicus Curiae for the Linguistic Society of America in the Arizona Supreme Court case, Ruiz v. Hull, 954 P.2d 984 (Ariz. 1998).

Brief Amicus Curiae for the Linguistic Society of America and the National Council for Languages and International Studies in the United States Supreme Court case Arizonans for Official English v. Arizona (1996).

Answer Brief on the Merits and Supplemental Brief in the California Supreme Court case New York Times Company v. Superior Court (January 1989) (with others).


OTHER PUBLICATIONS

Falling on Deaf Ears: Scientists Say that Earwitnesses are Unreliable.  Why Aren’t the Courts Listening?, Legal Affairs 71 (Nov./Dec. 2003) (with Lawrence Solan).

Linguists and the Law.  Loyola Lawyer 10 (Fall 1993).


BOOK REVIEWS

Review of Dennis Kurzon, It is Hereby Performed . . . Studies in Legal Speech Acts (Pragmatics and Beyond VII:6).  13 Studies in Language 245 (1989).

Review of Bettyruth Walter, The Jury Summation as Speech Genre: An Ethnographic Study of What It Means to Those Who Use It.  13 Studies in Language 527 (1989).


LINGUISTIC BOOKS/MONOGRAPHS

Frisian Reference Grammar.  Fryske Akademy, Ljouwert, Netherlands (2d edition, 1999).

Frisian Reference Grammar.  Foris Publications. (1985).

The Lexicon in Phonological Theory.  Indiana University Linguistics Club, Bloomington, Indiana (1980).

Aspects of the Phonology of Frisian.  Meidieling 4 of the Frisian Program at the Free University of Amsterdam (1979).


ARTICLES IN LINGUISTICS

Frisian, in The Germanic Languages (Johan van der Auwera and Ekkehard König, eds. 1994) 505 (by invitation; co-authored with Jarich Hoekstra).

Lokale Markeardens yn it Frysk, 8 Tydskrift foar Fryske Taalkunde 110 (1993).

Language Change in a Bilingual Community: Some Frisian Data.  In: Dutch Linguistics at Berkeley: Papers Presented at the Dutch Linguistics Colloquium at the University of California, Berkeley. (J. van Oosten & J.P. Snapper, eds., 1986).

Comments on the Development of Breaking.  35 Us Wurk 1-11 (1986).

Language-based Humor in the Marx Brothers Films.  Indiana University Linguistics Club (1985).

The Nature of Lexical Representation.  19 Journal of Linguistics 59-78 (1983).

Rule Recession and Rule Loss.  Proceedings of the XIII International Congress of Linguists, Tokyo, Japan (1983).

Local and General Markedness.  58 Language 832-49 (1982).

Some Phonetic Aspects of Breaking in West Frisian (with Tseard de Graaf).  37 Phonetica 109-20 (1980).

Some Theoretical Implications of Stem Alternations in Dutch Diminutives and Plurals.  In Studies in Dutch Phonology (W. Zonneveld ed. 1980).

Phonological Opacity and the Notion of Contrast.  In Linguistics in The Netherlands, 1977-79 (W. Zonneveld ed. 1980).

Bidirectional Leveling as Evidence for Relational Rules.  45 Lingua 65-77 (1978).

The Nature of f and v in Frisian and Marathi.  3 Journal of Phonetics 17-23 (1975).


REVIEW ARTICLE

Recent Phonological Theory.  Review of Dinnsen, Current Approaches to Phonological Theory.  54 Lingua 227-48 (1981).


BOOK REVIEWS

Review of Speech Acts and Conversational Interaction (Michael Geis).  74 Language 137 (1998).

Review of Wurdfoarried en Wurdgrammatika (S. Dyk and G. de Haan, eds.).  65 Language 648 (1989).

Review of Wurdfoarried en Wurdgrammatika (S. Dyk and G. de Haan, eds.).  78 Leuvense Bijdragen 379 (1989).

Review of Van der Meer, Frisian Breaking.  Leuvense Bijdragen.

Two New Frisian Dictionaries.  8 Dictionaries: Journal of the Dictionary Society of North America 279 (1986).

Review of T.L. Markey, Frisian.  59 Lingua 375-79. (1983).

Review of Raimo Anttila, Analogy.  51 Lingua 271 (1980).

Review of Paolo Ramat, Das Friesische.  47 Lingua 356-58 (1979).

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