Alec McHoul

Membership categorisation analysis (MCA) is a well-accepted approach in the areas of conversation analysis and ethnomethodology―yet it is hardly known in mainstream semiotics, let alone in social semiotics; and even less so in the comparatively recent uptake of social semiotics by legal scholars. Despite this, we think the basics of MCA could have important consequences for the emergent field of legal semiotics and we try to show this here by reference to aspects of family law in Australia.

We compare here the everyday and legal readings of two controversial cases from mid-2008 in Australia in which the legal status of a number of photographs came into contestation. The first case turned on an exhibition of photographs by the well-known artist, Bill Henson; the second, a cover from Art Monthly magazine. Both cases involved young persons and nudity. Our first approach to the cases is to look in detail at ‘child pornography’ law in Australia, by reference to the three jurisdictions in which the photographs were tested. We want to tease out the actual legal situation regarding the demarcation between licit and unlawful images (in terms of their pornographic status), especially where minors may be concerned. Our second approach is ethnosemiotic. Here we investigate how non-specialist or ordinary members of the society treated the controversies. As an example, we turn to a web discussion site and describe the ethnosemiotic resources that the contributors brought into play in an effort to comprehend these matters. Finally, we speculate on the gaps and overlaps between ‘ordinary’ and ‘formal’ modes of legal reasoning based on these two approaches.

In this chapter I turn to a seminal essay by Gilbert Ryle. Here Ryle explores the possible distinctions between ordinary everyday knowledge and recondite philosophical knowledge. He uses a number of metaphors in order to achieve this including those of “morning” vs “afternoon” types of questions, and the distinction between the villager’s and the cartographer’s knowledge of the locale. I extend these metaphors by drawing on Thomas Kasulis’s distinction between the potter’s and the geologist’s knowledge of clay and use this to reflect on lay as against professional knowledges of language. The idea of a “socio-logic” of ordinary talk, from Harvey Sacks, is alluded to as a way of seeing how such ordinary talk is grounded.

The proposed volumes are aimed at a multidisciplinary audience and seek to fill the gap between law, semiotics and visuality providing a comprehensive theoretical and analytical overview of legal visual semiotics. They seek to promote an interdisciplinary debate from law, semiotics and visuality bringing together the cumulative research traditions of these related areas as a prelude to identifying fertile avenues for research going forward.

Why is there so much resistance to recent issues of tolerance and diversity? Despite efforts of the international community to encourage open-mindedness, recent attempts at international, political and economic integration have shown that religious, cultural and ethnic tolerance and diversity remain under threat. The contributions in the volume reflect the growing importance of these issues and why resistance is so widespread. Part I addresses the relationship between the language of law and its power, whilst Part II explores the interplay of tolerance and diversity under visual, legislative and interpretative perspectives. This collection as a whole offers a combination of varied perspectives on the analysis, application and exploitation of laws and will be a valuable source of information for those interested in the general area of language and the law.

Intellectual disability is usually thought of as a form of internal, individual affliction, little different from diabetes, paralysis or chronic illness. This study, the first book-length application of discursive psychology to intellectual disability, shows that what we usually understand as being an individual problem is actually an interactional, or social, product. Through a range of case studies, which draw upon ethnomethodological and conversation analytic scholarship, the book shows how persons categorized as 'intellectually disabled' are produced, as such, in and through their moment-by-moment interaction with care staff and other professionals. Mark Rapley extends and reformulates current work in disability studies and offers a reconceptualisation of intellectual disability as both a professionally ascribed diagnostic category and an accomplished - and contested - social identity. Importantly, the book is grounded in data drawn from naturally-occurring, rather than professionally orchestrated, social interaction.

Empowering Readers is for senior secondary and undergraduate students of literature and their teachers. This very accessible book offers ten approaches to reading based on literary theories that have succeeded and competed with each other since the 1950s. Empowering Readers has the double appeal of giving an overview of theoretical and critical schools from New Criticism to Postmodernism as well as a fresh, insightful reading of important texts which are on a large number of reading lists, from Henry Fielding's Tom Jones, via Laclos' Dangerous Liaisons and Conrad's Heart of Darkness to Tim Winton's An Open Swimmer.

This is the ninth in the acclaimed series of spinoff volumes based on the outstanding Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics. It comprises 285 articles of which 80 are short biographical entries. 50 of the biographies and 42 other articles are entirely new, while the remaining entries are suitably revised and updated from ELL. This work provides uniquely comprehensive and authoritative information on all aspects of sociolinguistics.