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“I have to read it out loud”: Intertextuality in prison discipline

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 March 2018

Lori Labotka
Lori Labotka*
Affiliation:
University of Arizona, USA
*
Address for correspondence: Lori Labotka University of ArizonaEmil W. Haury Anthropology Building 1009 E. South Campus Drive Tucson, AZ 85721, USALabotka@email.arizona.edu
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Abstract

This article combines ethnographic and linguistic analysis to illuminate a critical aspect of the US criminal justice system—disciplinary hearings in prison. Focusing on one woman's (Cherry's) hearing, I consider the remaking of power through bureaucratic procedure. The scripted interaction requires the sergeant to read Cherry's ticket out loud in his performance of authority. I explore the intertextual relations motivated by this verbal animation for their ability to construct a unified front of the institution against which Cherry is tried. Cherry, however, manipulates these intertextual relationships, deploying verbal skills gained through her long entanglement with the criminal justice system to mitigate her punishment. The linguistic analysis of Cherry's hearing, positioned in her prison history, reveals the continual remaking of power in prison interactions that are framed by institutional regulations influencing the negotiation of officer authority and possibilities of inmate resistance. (Prisons, intertextuality, resistance, power, legal interactions)*

Type
Articles
Information
Language in Society , Volume 47 , Issue 2 , April 2018 , pp. 269 - 290
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Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2018 

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Footnotes

*

I would like to thank my research participants for their invaluable assistance. I would also like to thank Dr. Brackette F. Williams, Dr. Norma Mendoza-Denton, and Dr. Jennifer Roth-Gordon for their guidance on the project. Finally, I am grateful to the Society of Linguistic Anthropology for their recognition of and feedback on an earlier version of this article, and to the UCLA's Center for Language, Interaction, and Culture for their thoughtful input on this analysis.

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