Telling Judge Judy’s Story
 
Fleur van der Houwen
University of Southern California
Department of Linguistics

This paper focuses on discourse in the televised small claims court show Judge Judy. I examine the interaction between the litigants and the judge from a discourse-analytic perspective, at a micro as well as a macro linguistic level. This paper is part of a larger study in which I look at various court shows. The reason for the initial focus on analysis of Judge Judy is that it is produced in Los Angeles which provides me with possible access to tapings of the show. The National Center for State Courts’ 1999 national survey reports that 40.5% of respondents indicated that they rely ‘sometimes’ or ‘regularly’ on televised small claims courts for information about the U.S. legal system. These percentages show that such productions serve not only to entertain, but also to provide an important educational role by modeling legal discourse. These shows construct a social reality for viewers and give them access to a legal discourse in small claims courts that most would not otherwise have.

            Only a fairly small amount of research on legal discourse in small claims courts has been done. These studies have shown two ways in particular in which lay people attempt to resolve everyday problems; namely, by employing a relation oriented or a rule oriented discourse (Conley and O’Barr 1985, 1990, 1998; Merry 1990; Morill et al. 1998). Rule oriented discourse seeks to resolve problems based on the application of rules and is the one shared by legal professionals. Litigants who use relation oriented discourse tend to appeal to the court for reasonableness and fairness in terms of social relations rather than legal rules. Other investigations found that disputes go through various stages, and that the version of a dispute as it is told at various stages undergoes changes (Felstiner et al. 1980-81; Mather and Yngvesson 1980-81; Conley and O’Barr 1998). The transformation of accounts litigants give may be especially dramatic when litigants construct their story from a relation oriented perspective before a mostly rule oriented judge. The different communicative goals pursued by both may frustrate relation oriented litigants in telling their story, especially if the judge is interactive and asks questions the litigant does not deem relevant.

            Almost no studies of televised small claims courts have undertaken careful analysis of the interactions between real judges and real litigants. In this paper, I analyze one case from the televised court show Judge Judy in detail. I show how both the tension between rule and relation oriented discourse and the process of transformation of accounts occur, by looking at the transformation of an account through the interaction of a rule oriented judge and a relation oriented litigant. Drawing on a variety of discourse-analytic tools (including speech act theory, conversation analysis), I look at how meaning is negotiated and (co-)constructed. A main difference between ‘regular’ small claims court judges and TV judges is the very active interactional style and the outspokenness of the latter. An analysis of this active and outspoken form of interaction by Judge Judy reveals subtle, and some not so subtle, ways in which judges on TV ‘teach’ litigants relevance, legal terminology and the legal rules that pertain to the case that litigants present. I show how Judge Judy negotiates meaning by re-phrasing and repeating what litigants recount, and how she gets litigants to retell and re-frame their stories such that her judgments are inevitable and comprehensible. The viewers may learn what types of cases are suitable for small claims court and are shown how to argue their case successfully.

References:

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Just Words. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998.

Felstiner, William L.F., Richard L. Abel and Austin Sarat. “The Emergence and Transformation of             Disputes: Naming, Blaming, Claiming… .” Law and Society Review 15. 3-4 (1980-81): 631-54.

Mather Lynn and Barbara Yngvesson. Language, Audience, and the Transformation of Disputes.” Law and Society Review 15. 3-4 (1980-81): 775-821.

Morill, Calvin., Michelle Johnson and Tyler Harrisson. “Voice and Context in Legal Discourse.” Law and Society Review 32. 3 (1998): 639-65.

O’Barr, William M. and John M. Conley (1988). “Lay Expectations of the Civil Justice System.” Law and

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Yngvesson, Barbara and Hennessey, Patricia. “Small Claims, Complex Disputes: A Review of the             Small    Claims Literature.” Law and Society Review 1975: 219-274.