Introduction: The (Ab)use of Language in Legal Discourse

International Journal for the Semiotics of Law - Revue internationale de Sémiotique juridique -     

Culture and Negotiation Strategy

In this article the authors investigate the relationship between culture and joint gains by examining the role of information sharing and power strategies in intracultural negotiations. Previously, the authors found that the relationship between cultural values or norms and joint gains was uncertain in six cultures: France, Russia, Japan, Hong Kong, Brazil, and the United States. Of the five values and norms measured, only norms for information sharing in negotiation were directly related to joint gains. This article explores and extends prior findings by investigating the strategies used by negotiators in the same six cultures. Cultures that maximized joint gains used direct information-sharing strategies or a combination of indirect and direct strategies. Power strategies may help or hurt joint gains, depending on a culture's values and norms for power and whether or not power-based influence is used in conjunction with sufficient information exchange. The findings suggest that understanding the other party's cultural characteristics and strategies can help negotiators plan how to focus on information exchange and deal with unusual power strategies that they may encounter.     

Attitudinal characteristics of males who have engaged in spouse abuse

Several of the attitudinal characteristics which are frequently attributed to abusive males were investigated in this study. Samples of male military personnel who had engaged in at least one serious episode of interspousal violence in the previous 6 months were administered measures of the following variables: (1) Attitudes toward self — The Coopersmith Self-The Coopersmith Self-esteem Inventory; (2) Attitudes toward others — The Generalized Expectations of Others Questionnaire, a short form of The Attitudes Toward Women Scale and The Mehrabian and Epstein Empathy Scale; and (3) Dogmatism —The Rokeach D Scale and the Revised Authoritarianism Index, When compared to matched control groups of nonabusive males, statistically significant differences were found only for The Self-esteem Inventory and one item of the Generalized Expectations of Others Questionnaire. It is concluded that many of the attitudinal characteristics of abusive males reported in the clinical literature may not be a significant component in the etiology of spouse abuse.     

The Computer-Assisted Postmortem Identification (CAPMI) system: sorting algorithm improvements

Refinements to the original Computer-Assisted Postmortem Identification (CAPMI) software algorithms and general data handling were suggested as a result of observations made following the Gander plane crash of 1985. The presence of highly fragmented and scattered remains following most plane crashes suggested that changes to procedure might improve CAPMI performance for use in these types of disasters. A total of 162 ante- and postmortem dental records which had been used successfully to identify victims of the Gander disaster were coded for anonymity and used for this investigation. Changes in data construction and management were made to CAPMI, according to concepts which were thought might improve system performance, and tested. Although most tested techniques improved CAPMI performance, the data suggested that replacement of "virgin" chartings with "data unknown" results in improved performance of CAPMI largely independent of other factors. Of 162 possible record matches, the original algorithm successfully listed the true record match in the top 20 possibilities 74% of the time; the tested variations on the original algorithm yielded results across a range of 38 to 83% successes, with most techniques performing better than the original algorithm. Results of this investigation have been incorporated into improved CAPMI procedures and software.