Work

Observing Supreme Court Oral Argument: A Biosocial Approach

Year: 1992

Type: article

Abstract: Supreme Court oral argument (OA) is one of many face-to-face settings of political interaction. This article describes a methodology for the systematic observation and measurement of behavior in OA developed in a study of over 300 randomly selected cases from the 1969-1981 terms of the U.S. Supreme Court. Five sources of observation are integrated into the OA database at the speaking turn level of analysis: the actual text of verbal behavior; categorical behavior codes; aspects of language use and speech behavior events; electro-acoustical measurement of voice quality; and content analysis of subject matter. Preliminary data are presented to illustrate the methodology and its application to theoretical concerns of the research project.

Source: Politics and the Life Sciences

DOI: 10.1017/s0730938400017196

Authors: James N. Schubert, Steven A. Peterson, Glendon Schubert, Stephen Wasby