Rhetoric, technological innovation and legal audiences: the case of Brazilian Supreme Court
| Autor | Isaac Costa Reis |
| Páginas | 185-202 |
Rhetoric, technological innovation and legal audiences:
the case of the Brazilian Supreme Court
Isaac Reis
1. Introduction; 2. Which Rhetoric?; 2.1. The importance of the audience; 2.2.
The Empirical-Rhetorical Analysis of Discourse – ERAD; 3. The live broadcast of
the sessions and its effects; 4. The rhetoric of the Brazilian Supreme Court (STF);
5. Conclusion
1. Introduction
Traditionally, theories of Law and legal adjudication do not usually in-
clude pragmatic elements in the description they make of their objects. Since
they are not a product of empirical research, their descriptive and prescrip-
tive intentions normally appear mixed.
Any person, however, lay or trained in Law, would agree upon the fact
as the structure of the courts (amount of cases, formalism, internal bureau-
cracy), the mindset of the judges (ideology, pre-comprehension, prejudices,
tempers), the procedural paths, the intellectual submission of the judges to
parties, social pressure (public opinion), submission to mechanisms of hi-
erarchical control, adequacy to the productivity rules, political connections
with the other powers, search for social legitimation etc.
Fortunately, it has built the consciousness that these factors need to be stud-
rhetorical communities in which the Law, as a social practice, is produced and
reproduced. In many countries, this awareness has its origin in the openness
1
as an object of research, which now has priority within Law Schools, especially
2
1 It is important to highlight the importance of Pierre Bourdieu’s work, The Force
, in the conception that Law could be
thought of as a space for competitive struggles, with relative autonomy in relation to the
2 Cane/Kritzer (eds.) (2010).
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approaches and techniques for the production and analysis of data ranging
from quantitative to ethnographic perspectives. In this universe of distinct
epistemological foundations, Rhetoric, as millenary knowledge, provides sol-
id bases for the development of studies focused on the discourses of jurists as
3
This chapter aims to analyze the relationship between the rhetoric of the
Brazilian Supreme Court (Supremo Tribunal Federal – STF) and the live
broadcast of the plenary sessions, as an example on how technological inno-
The main goal is to analyze how judicial rhetoric and, consequently, the
Law itself can be conditioned by this technological element and how it con-
tributes to change the audience (albeit ideally) to whom the judicial discourse
is addressed.
In addition to this introduction and a conclusion, this chapter is organized
with a special focus on the concept of audience and the exposure of an em-
pirical model of analysis of legal discourses. In the second part, it analyses
the meaning and the effects of live transmissions of the plenary sessions of
the Brazilian Federal Supreme Court. In the third and last part, it seeks to
show, from data obtained through rhetorical analysis, how the transmissions
of the sessions condition the speech of the judges and how this technological
innovation can bring considerable changes to what we understand as the pro-
duction of Law.
2. Which Rhetoric?
Rhetoric comprises a very old set of knowledge. Its origins are customarily
-
dressed to the people who had to write speeches for the citizens who, in de-
fense of their rights, had to face each other personally before the assemblies.4
In Athens, throughout the 5th century Rhetoric became a topic of debate
4 Breton/Gauthier (2001); Barthes (2001).
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