Popularization and Democratization of Knowledge through Blawgs
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.13136/2281-4582/2018.i12.400Keywords:
English linguistics, legal language, metaphors, blogs, online discourseAbstract
The main aim of this study is to investigate the role of blawgs as a source of legal information both within and external to the epistemic law community and as a legitimizing tool for the many different voices which interact on a blawg. To this end, a corpus of twenty influential environmental blawgs has been compiled and analyzed qualitatively. The analysis focuses on how blawgs may contribute to the popularization and dissemination of knowledge in relation to environmental law. In particular, it is observed that explanations are aimed at a heterogeneous public and do not necessarily draw upon an underlying consensus. In this respect, attention is paid to the discursive practices employed and to how bloggers filter and distill the overwhelming volume of information available. Moreover, the role of metaphors is discussed and defined as having not only an ornamental or aesthetic function, but also a methodological and epistemic one. Within the debate over which blogs are seen as indisputable tools for the democratization of legal information or as threats to traditional legal scholarship, this paper ultimately argues for understanding blawgs as a complementary (rather than substitutive) arena for discussion.References
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Rumelhart, David E. “Schemata: The building blocks of cognition.” Theoretical Issues in Reading Comprehension. Eds. R. Spiro, B. Bruce and W. Brewer. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1981. 33-58.
Schlosberg, David. “Theorising Environmental Justice: The Expanding Sphere of a Discourse.” Environmental Politics 22.1 (2013): 37-55.
Stroud, Natalie J. “Media Use and Political Predispositions: Revisiting the Concept of Selective Exposure.” Political Behavior 30.3 (2008): 341–366.
Tuckwell, Jason. Creation and the Function of Art: Techné, Poiesis and the Problem of Aesthetics. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2017.
Wenger, Etienne. Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning and Identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
---. Richard McDermott, and William Snyder. Cultivating Communities of Practice. Boston, MASS: Harvard Business School Press, 2002.
Ashburner, Walter. Principles of Equity, 2nd Ed. London: Butterworth, 1933.
Bakhtin, Mikhail. Speech Genres and Other Late Essays. Trans. V.W. McGee. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1986.
Biedenbach, Thomas, and Mattias Jacobsson. “The Open Secret of Values: The Roles of Values and Axiology in Project Research.” Project Management Journal 47.3 (2016): 139-155.
Calsamiglia, Helena, and Teun A. van Dijk. “Popularization Discourse and Knowledge about the Genome.” Discourse & Society 15.4 (2004): 369-389.
Carter, Adrienne E. “Blogger Beware: Ethical Considerations for Legal Blogs.” Richmond Journal of Law and Technology 14.2 (2007): 1-32.
Condello, Angela. “Metaphor as Analogy: Reproduction and Production of Legal Concepts.” Journal of Law and Society 43.1 (2016): 8-26.
Cornett, Judy M., “The Ethics of Blawging: A Genre Analysis.” Loyola University Chicago Law Journal 41 (2009): 221-262.
Ditlevsen, Marianne G. “Towards a methodological framework for Knowledge Communication.” Current Issues in Specialized Communication. Eds. M. Petersen and J. Engberg. Bern: Peter Lang, 2011. 187-208.
d'Aspremont, Jean. Epistemic Forces in International Law. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publish, 2015.
Fairgrieve, Duncan, and Horatia Muir-Watt. Common law et tradition civiliste: convergence ou concurrence? Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 2006.
Fuller, Lon. “Legal fictions.” Illinois Law Review 25.4 (1930): 363-399.
Garzone, Giuliana. “Investigating Blawgs through Corpus Linguistics: Issues of Generic Integrity.” Corpus Analysis for Descriptive and Pedagogical Purposes: ESP Perspectives. Eds. M. Gotti and D. Giannoni. Bern: Peter Lang, 2014. 167-188.
---. “The Legal Blog (Blawg): Generic Integrity and Variation.” Variation in Specialized Genres: Standardization and Popularization. Eds. V.K Bhatia, E. Chiavetta, and S. Sciarrino. Tübinge: Narr Francke Attempto Verlag, 2015. 37-62.
Henri, France, and Béatrice Pudelko. "Understanding and Analysing Activity and Learning in Virtual Communities." Journal of Computer Assisted Learning 19.4 (2003): 474-487.
Hibbitts, Bernard J. “Making Sense of Metaphors: Visuality, Aurality, and the Reconfiguration of American Legal Discourse.” Cardozo Law Review 16 (1994): 229-356.
Holder, Jane, and Maria Lee. Environmental Law and Policy: Text and Materials. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
Jakobsen, Trond G. “Environmental Ethics: Anthropocentrism and Non-anthropocentrism Revised in the Light of Critical Realism.” Journal of Critical Realism 16.2 (2016): 184-199.
Kastberg, Peter. “Knowledge Communication. Formative Ideas and Research Impetus.” Programmatic Perspectives 2.1 (2010): 59-71.
Keil, Geert, and Ralf Poscher, eds. Vagueness in the Law: Philosophical and Legal Perspectives. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016.
Lakoff, George. “Contemporary Theory of Metaphor.” Metaphor and Thought. Ed. A. Ortony. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993. 202-251.
---. and Mark Johnson. Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980.
Lave, Jean, and Etienne Wenger. Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991.
Loughlan, Patricia. “Pirates, Parasites, Reapers, Sowers, Fruits, Foxes… The Metaphors of Intellectual Property.” Sydney Law Review 28.2 (2006): 211-226.
Makela, Finn. “Metaphors and Models in Legal Theory.” Les Cahiers de Droit 52 (2011): 397-415.
Picard, Étienne. Dictionnaire de la culture juridique, Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 2003.
Prendergast, Christopher. The Order of Mimesis: Balzac, Stendhal, Nerval, Flaubert, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986.
Puschmann, Cornelius. “Blogging.” Pragmatics of Computer-Mediated Communication. Eds. S.C. Herring, D. Stein, and T. Virtanen. Berlin/New York: De Gruyter, 2013. 83-108.
Reagle, Joseph Michael. Reading the Comments: Likers, Haters, and Manipulators at the Bottom of the Web. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2015.
Regnier, Thomas. “Could Shakespeare Think Like a Lawyer? How Inheritance Law Issues in Hamlet May Shed Light on the Authorship Question.” University of Miami Law Review 57 (2003): 377-428.
Rescher, Nicholas. G. W. Leibniz's Monadology. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1991.
Richard, Isabelle. “Metaphors in English for Law: Let Us Keep Them!” Lexis – Journal in English Lexicology 8 (2014): 1-19.
Rumelhart, David E. “Schemata: The building blocks of cognition.” Theoretical Issues in Reading Comprehension. Eds. R. Spiro, B. Bruce and W. Brewer. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1981. 33-58.
Schlosberg, David. “Theorising Environmental Justice: The Expanding Sphere of a Discourse.” Environmental Politics 22.1 (2013): 37-55.
Stroud, Natalie J. “Media Use and Political Predispositions: Revisiting the Concept of Selective Exposure.” Political Behavior 30.3 (2008): 341–366.
Tuckwell, Jason. Creation and the Function of Art: Techné, Poiesis and the Problem of Aesthetics. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2017.
Wenger, Etienne. Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning and Identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
---. Richard McDermott, and William Snyder. Cultivating Communities of Practice. Boston, MASS: Harvard Business School Press, 2002.
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2018-12-01
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