Peter Tiersma is Professor of Law at Loyola Law School.Lawrence Solan is Professor of Law at Brooklyn Law School.Janet Ainsworth is Professor of Law at Seattle University School of Law.Roger W. Shuy is Emeritus Professor of Linguistics at Georgetown University.

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• Acknowledgements ; Contributors ; Preface ; Part I ; Legal Language and Its History ; 1. Peter M. Tiersma, Excerpt from A History of the Languages of Law (in The Oxford Handbook of Language and Law) ; 2. Peter M. Tiersma, Excerpt from Legal Language ; 3. Peter M. Tiersma, Excerpt from Parchment, Paper, Pixels ; 4. Peter M. Tiersma, Excerpt from Some Myths about Legal Language ; 5. Frederick Schauer, On the Relationship Between Legal and Ordinary Language ; 6. Ronald R. Butters, Legal Language and its History: Quo Imus? Qua Imus? ; 7. Frank S. Ravitch, Philosophical Hermeneutics in the Age of Pixels: Hans-Georg Gadamer, Peter Tiersma, and Dasein in the Age of the Internet ; 8. Edward Finegan, The Language of Lawyers and the Language of Plumbers ; 9. Dieter Stein, Words, Words, Words - But What's in a Text? ; Part II ; The Language of Contracts and Wills ; 10. Peter M. Tiersma, Excerpt from Parchment, Paper, Pixels ; 11. Peter M. Tiersma, Excerpt from Reassessing Unilateral Contracts ; 12. Brian H. Bix, Philosophy of Language, Unilateral Contracts, and the Law ; 13. Sidney W. DeLong, How to do Legal Things with Words: The Contracts Scholarship of Peter Tiersma ; 14. Peter Goodrich, Tiersma Contra Mundum In Defence Of Promises ; 15. Jeffrey M. Lipshaw, Formalism, Speech Acts, and The Realities Of Contract Formation ; Part III ; Speech and Action ; The Meanings of Silence in Law ; 16. Peter M. Tiersma, Excerpts from The Language of Silence ; 17. Peter M. Tiersma, Excerpt from Nonverbal Communication and the Freedom of Speech ; 18. Elizabeth Mertz, Law's Metalinguistics: Silence, Speech, and Action ; 19. Malcolm Coulthard, The Sounds of Silence ; 20. Meizhen Liao, Speech or Silence: Within and Beyond Language and Law ; Consenting ; 21. Peter M. Tiersma, Excerpt fromThe Language of Consent in Rape Law (In Janet Cotterill (ed.), The Language of Sexual Crime (pp. 91-97) ; 22. Susan Ehrlich, 'Inferring' Consent in the Context of Rape and Sexual Assault ; 23. Tim Grant & Kerrie Spaul, Felicitous Consent ; 24. Gregory M. Matoesian, Reflections on Peter Tiersma's <"The Language and Consent in Rape Law>" ; 25. Gail Stygall, Speaking of Consent ; Defaming ; 26. Peter M. Tiersma, Excerpt from The Language of Defamation ; 27. John M. Conley, Defamation as Speech Act: A Theory that Works ; 28. Roger W. Shuy, Applying Tiersma's Defamation Theory to Defamation Cases ; 29. Krzysztof Kredens, Scarlet Letter or Badge of Honour? Semantic Interpretation in Changing Contexts of Culture ; Part IV ; Interpreting Laws ; 30. Peter M. Tiersma, Excerpt from Parchment, Paper, Pixels (pp. 169-176, starting with "Dynamic Statutes") ; 31. Peter M. Tiersma, Excerpt from The Textualization of Precedent (pp. 1187-89, 1257-62). ; 32. Lawrence M. Solan, Talk About Text as Text ; 33. Jeffrey P. Kaplan, Textualization, Textualism, and Purpose-Stating Preambles ; 34. Dru Stevenson, Between Paper and Pixels - How the Form of Modern Laws Changed their Function ; Part V ; Language and Criminal Justice ; Crimes of Language ; 35. Peter M. Tiersma, Except from The Language of Perjury: <"Literal Truth,>" Ambiguity, and the False Statement Requirement ; 36. Lawrence M. Solan and Peter M. Tiersma, <"Threats>" (from Speaking of Crime (pp. 198-204) ; 37. Janet Ainsworth, How We Play Games with Words in the Law ; 38. Philip Gaines, Toward a Communicative Approach to Law- and Rule-Making ; 39. Susan Berk-Seligson, Threats: A Pragmalinguistic Approach to the Analysis of a Speech Crime ; Criminal Justice and Everyday Speech ; 40. Peter M. Tiersma, Except from The Judge as Linguist ; 41. Hannes Kniffka, Applied (Forensic) Linguistics in Autochthonic and Allochthonic Use ; 42. Richard A. Leo, The Sound of Silence: Miranda Waivers, Selective Literalism and Social Context ; 43. Laurie L. Levenson, Words Alone ; 44. Frances Rock, Sizzling Irons: Speaking of Criminal Justice ; Part VI ; Jury Instructions ; 45. Peter M. Tiersma, Excerpt from The Rocky Road to Legal Reform ; 46. Peter M. Tiersma, Excerpt from Legal Language ; 47. Bethany K. Dumas, Navigating the Rocky Road ; 48. Chris Heffer, Authority and Accommodation: Judicial Responses to Jurors' Questions ; 49. Nancy S. Marder, Jury Instructions Written for Jurors: A Perennial Challenge ; Bibliography of Peter Tiersma's Work