Artigo Acesso aberto Revisado por pares

Making a Case: Narrative and Paradigmatic Modes in the Legal-Lay Discourse of the English Jury Trial

2003; Equinox Publishing; Volume: 10; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1558/ijsll.v10i1.157

ISSN

1748-8893

Autores

Chris Heffer,

Tópico(s)

Law in Society and Culture

Resumo

This thesis is an ethnographic account of the literacy-related activities, practices and material artefacts generated by and contained within the Prison Community. It describes the inter-relation of literacies with social and institutional identities and looks at the way reading and writing creates and sustains prisoners’ networks of communication inside and outside contemporary British prisons. It challenges not only societally established institutions of education and incarceration but dispels a number of myths surrounding prisons, literacy and prisoners. It begins by outlining my on-going interest in prison literacies, charting my gradual acceptance into the prison system and noting the perspective from which I initially viewed the incarcerated population. This forms a strong basis from which to understand the way in which I approach prisons – from a creative rather than a criminal perspective – and provides a relevant and honest description of my position in the prison envi- ronment rather than the more general, less personal descriptions of prison life. I begin by charting my own progression through the system, how I came to be ‘in prison’, and how I occupied my time, thus allowing the reader to understand that my substantial knowledge has been gained grad- ually and from a basis of earned trust. As the study intimates, prisons are culturally specific and often con- fusing environments with complex and changing rules, regulations, language, ideologies and politics, and in order to assist the reader I provide an appended Glossary of Terms and explanatory endnotes for each 166

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