Legal professional identity formation and the representation of legal professionals in classroom talk.
Date
2012-09-20
Authors
Humby, Tracy-Lynn
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
The
focus
of
this
study
is
the
formation
of
legal
professional
identity
and
the
manner
and
extent
to
which
representations
of
legal
professionals
in
classroom
talk
could
feature
in
and
be
studied
as
part
of
this
process.
Eclipsed
for
many
years
by
the
need
to
teach
students
to
‘think
like
lawyers’,
professional
identify
formation
is
increasingly
acknowledged
as
a
legitimate
concern
of
legal
educationalists.
This
entails
expanding
the
sphere
of
legal
education
beyond
the
cognitive
aspects
of
the
discipline
of
law
to
encompass
inculcation
of
the
purposes
and
values
of
the
profession
but
also,
more
broadly,
an
appreciation
of
the
forms
of
power
legal
professionals
exercise,
the
forms
of
work
they
undertake,
the
relationships
they
establish
and
maintain,
and
the
social
profile
of
the
profession
they
advocate
for
or
accept.
The
study
assumes
an
understanding
of
legal
professional
identity
formation
as
a
pervasive
and
implicit
process
of
socialization
that
occurs
irrespective
of
whether
professional
identity
has
been
posited
as
a
particular
pedagogical
object
or
not.
It
puts
forward
the
thesis
that
representations
of
legal
professionals
in
classroom
talk
constitute
part
of
the
socialization
process.
It
presents
a
theoretical
model
for
understanding
the
significance
of
such
representations
in
processes
of
identity
formation,
linking
them
to
an
understanding
of
‘identity
regulation’
that
revolves
around
the
concepts
‘role’
and
‘discourse’.
It
further
invokes
the
resources
of
critical
discourse
analysis
and,
in
particular,
the
work
of
Van
Leeuwen,
to
develop
a
set
of
appropriate
analytical
codes
modeled
on
key
elements
of
social
practice
for
analyzing
representational
meanings
relating
to
legal
professionals
in
classroom
talk.
The
development
of
the
codes
is
undertaken
through
an
iterative
process
that
engages
with
a
complete,
verbatim
transcription
of
classroom
talk
in
an
introductory
six-‐month
course
on
law
at
a
tertiary
institution.
The
study
concludes
that
a
discursive,
analytical
approach
to
studying
representational
meanings
relating
to
legal
professionals
in
classroom
talk
and,
in
particular,
a
micro-‐discursive
point
of
entry
modeled
on
key
elements
of
social
practice,
is
useful
and
appropriate
for
apprehending
the
richness
of
the
representational
meanings.
Such
an
approach
allows
for
a
grounded
identification
of
themes
that
can
then
be
compared
to
claims
made
in
the
literature
on
legal
professionalism
and
the
teaching
of
legal
ethics.
It
also
concludes
that
because
the
representation
of
legal
professionals
in
classroom
talk
overlaps
with
the
power
relations
of
the
classroom,
they
should
be
regarded
as
a
significant
source
of
identity
regulation
and
thus
used
in
a
manner
that
is
both
reflective
and
constructive.
Description
Keywords
Identity formation, Professional identity, Legal professionalism, Critical discourse analysis, Representation