Law & Corpus Linguistics Conference
BYU Law School
April 29, 2016
The inaugural Law and Corpus Linguistics Conference, co-sponsored by the Georgetown Center for the Constitution, will bring together over two dozen scholars and judges with expertise in interpretation to examine theoretical and methodological issues relating to the emerging field of law and corpus linguistics.
BYU is home to many of the most important research corpora in the world, including:
- Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA)
- Corpus of Historical American English (COHA)
- BYU Law School is currently developing the Corpus of Founding Era American English (COFEA)
The Corpus of Founding Era American English (COFEA)
COFEA will cover the time period starting with the reign of King George III, and ending with the death of George Washington (1760-1799), making it the oldest historical corpus of American English, and the only one in existence for that time period. COFEA will contain documents from ordinary people of the day, the Founders, and legal sources, including letters, diaries, newspapers, non-fiction books, fiction, sermons, speeches, debates, legal cases, and other legal materials. Currently 120 million words have been collected.
Prof. Jill Anderson
Connecticut
Dr. Mark Davies
BYU
Dr. Edward Finegan
USC
Dr. Stefan Th. Gries
UC-Santa Barbara
Prof. Jennifer Mascott
George Washington
Prof. Stephen Mouritsen
BYU
Prof. Michael Rappaport
San Diego
Prof. Jarrod Shobe
BYU
Dr. Larry Solan
Brooklyn
Prof. John Stinneford
Florida
Presenters
Attendees
Prof. Randy Barnett
Georgetown
Dr. Jesse Egbert
BYU
Dr. Jonah Gelbach
Pennsylvania
Prof. Randy Kozel
Notre Dame
Prof. John McGinnis
Northwestern
The Honorable David Nuffer
Federal District Court of Utah
Prof. Richard Re
UCLA
Dr. Brian Slocum
McGeorge
Prof. Lawrence Solum
Georgetown
Prof. Lee Strang
Toledo
Prof. Will Baude
Chicago
Dr. Bill Eggington
BYU
Neal Goldfarb
Butzel Long
The Honorable Thomas Lee
Utah Supreme Court
Prof. David Moore
BYU
Prof. Carolina Nuñez
BYU
Prof. Stephen Sachs
Duke
Dr. Scott Soames
USC
Prof. Gordon Smith
BYU
8:45 AM
Welcome and Opening Remarks
9:00 AM
Introduction to Law and Corpus Linguistics
Stephen Mouritsen:
A brief overview of problems in legal interpretation that are amenable to corpus analysis and brief outline of the application of corpus linguistics to these problems.
Professor Mark Davies:
Discussion of available corpora and their parameters—including the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA) and the Corpus of Historical American Usage (COHA)—as well as tools for the examination and analysis of corpus data.
Professor David Moore and James Phillips:
Discussion of the BYU Corpus of Founding Era American English (COFEA)
10:15 AM
15 Minute Break
10:30 AM
Corpus Linguistics in the Courts
Opening remarks by Justice Thomas R. Lee:
Brief outline of problems for discussion, including questions of judicial expertise and judicial notice and identifying instances where corpus linguistics would and would not be helpful or even necessary, etc.
Group Discussion
12:00 PM
Lunch
Professor Carolina Núñez, Corpus Linguistics and Political Discourse
1:30 PM
Corpus Linguistics and Statutory Interpretation
Opening remarks by Justice Thomas R. Lee and Stephen Mouritsen:
Brief outline of problems for discussion; discussion of relevant corpora.
Group Discussion
2:45 PM
15 Minute Break
3:00 PM
Corpus Linguistics in Constitutional Interpretation
Opening remarks by Professor Randy Barnett and Professor Larry Solum:
Brief outline of problems for discussion; discussion of relevant corpora.
Group Discussion
4:30 PM
Group Discussion: Concluding Thoughts on Future Directions
7:00 PM
Conference Dinner
Law and Corpus Linguistics Conference
BYU Law School
April 29, 2016
ITINERARY
Relevant Cases, Scholarship & Media
Stephen C. Mouritsen
The Dictionary is Not a Fortress: Definitional Fallacies and a Corpus-Based Approach to Plain Meaning
2010 B.Y.U. L. Rev. 1915
Stephen C. Mouritsen
Hard Cases and Hard Data: Assessing Corpus Linguistics as an Empirical Path to Plain Meaning
13 Col. Science & Tech. L. Rev. 156 (2011)
Ben Zimmer
The Corpus in the Court: ‘Like Lexis on Steroids’
The Atlantic (March 4, 2011)
Daniel Ortner
The Merciful Corpus: The Rule of Lenity, Ambiguity and Corpus Linguistics
Boston U. Public Interest L. J. ?? (2016)
James C. Phillips, Daniel Ortner & Thomas R. Lee
Corpus Linguistics & Original Public Meaning: A New Tool to Make Originalism More Empirical
126 Yale L.J. F. ?? (2016)
State v. Rasabout
2015 UT 72 (see J. Lee concurrence)
Current Projects
conference attendees
conference Schedule
Cases, Media, Scholarship