PARATEXTS AND THE NEW RULES OF LAW
Combining Channels of Communication in Paratexts
Law in its printed formwhether statutory or decisional, public or private vies against the oral or extrinsic way and against any full measure of context. Today, however, the balance of power among the preelectronic forms of communicationoral, scribal, printis changing again. Paratexts make it increasingly difficult, if not impossible, for print law to distance itself from the context associated with the oral way.
As discussed earlier, the power of print law depends on the typographic enframing of both its rules and much of the context to which the rules apply. All of the attributes of print lawclosure, systematization, control, abstractionare incompatible with a mindset that understands law essentially as openended, uncategorized, uncontrolled, and particular. The print representation of context currently keeps this mindset in check and maintains the balance of power in its favor as against orality.
The presence of the new "word" of paratexts ("secondary orality" 146) challenges the power of printed law. Modern electronic technology enframes orality and visuality so that they reassert themselves in paratexts as never before. 147 With the aid of paratexts, orality can better establish its own credibility and thereby provide a measure of auralvisual detail not previously possible. These new and contextrich paratextsbe they recordings of trials, wills, contracts, or confessionschallenge the contextlimited character of printed statutes, judicial decisions, and administrative regulations.
As we have explained, the scribal medium stood between speech and print, sharing attributes of each. In the electronic age, we have come nearly full circle with paratexts standing midpoint between print and speech, combining attributes of each. The secondary orality of paratexts, filled with their secondary context, may challenge the understanding and operation of printed law. It is to that struggle we now turn.
