Abstract

In this article I discuss the ‘acquisition’ of and ‘engagement’ with common law discourse attempted by two international postgraduate law students in terms of a relationship of hospitality with language. Like hospitality, language is marked for Derrida by a structure of a ‘promise of a gift’ (Derrida 1998: 21, 66) which at the same time can never be given but is ‘always yet to come’ (Derrida 1998: 67). Nevertheless, as in hospitality, there is necessarily a sense that this gift is real, there is ‘a language’ or specific discourse (such as the discourse of common law in English) that one can ‘make oneself at home in’.

How to Cite:

Price, S., (2014) “Student Writing in Law: Fixed Discourse Boundaries and Hospitable Crossings”, Law Text Culture 17(1), 143-162.