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Full-Text Articles in Law

Linguistics In Law, Alani Golanski Jan 2002

Linguistics In Law, Alani Golanski

Alani Golanski

The "new textualism" is amenable to the use of linguists in legal cases. New textualists seek to interpret statutes "objectively," according to the "plain meaning" of the statutory terms; these jurists and scholars see plain-meaning analysis as linguistics, and linguistics as science. Law and linguistics pursue different ends, however, and linguists construing statutes will miss legally decisive issues. Modern linguistics theory is an area of central concern to cognitive psychologists as well as philosophers of mind and language. While not hegemonic, Chomsky's psychological program influences modern linguistics, and the linguist's approach often leads in a different direction from that taken …


Loose Canons: Statutory Construction And The New Nondelegation Doctrine, David M. Driesen Jan 2002

Loose Canons: Statutory Construction And The New Nondelegation Doctrine, David M. Driesen

College of Law - Faculty Scholarship

This article asks whether courts or administrative agencies have constitutional authority to narrowly construe statutes to save them from truly serious nondelegation claims. It explains why the Court correctly rejected administrative saving construction in American Trucking Ass'ns v. Whitman, and why the rationale supporting this rejection applies to courts as well as to agencies. This article also questions recent arguments that the nondelegation doctrine has found a new and appropriate home among canons of statutory construction. Judicial saving construction could lead to great expansion of judicial authority to make public law at the expense of the more democratic branches of …