Adam Prestidge and Dr. William Eggington, Department of Linguistics and English Language
In a nation governed by laws, change in the meaning of the words that compose those laws can have an unexpected impact. When I began to research this topic, I noticed that in certain Supreme Court cases, the word liberty was central to the discussion of the rights in question, and was used in some surprising ways. In the 2003 Supreme Court case, Lawrence v. Texas, liberty was described as something that guaranteed “the full right to engage in private conduct without government intervention.” After this statement piqued my interest, I noticed that Planned Parenthood of Southeastern PA v. Casey states: “At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.” Subsequent examination of other “Privacy Line” cases revealed similar shifts in usage. I also noticed that in these modern cases, where liberty was defined, the word private, or privacy, was often included.
I wondered if these modern usages were consistent with the predominant meanings that existed at the time that the Bill of Rights was written. After researching the meanings in the earliest lexicographical dictionaries in English, I discovered that they weren’t. In the late 1700s, liberty had primary notions of freedom from physical bondage, while privacy had the primary notions of the state of seclusion, alone.
From here, I investigated how those two words changed and evolved over time. It was evident that they had changed, but identifying semantic change empirically has never been an easy task within the field of historical linguistics, so I was unsure how to prove this. After much consideration on the type of methodology to employ, I decided to rely on a series of eleven dictionaries published from 1755–2003, which showed different meanings prevalent at the times they were published. The results clearly showed that the meanings of both of these words shifted gradually from literal to figurative notions.
The model presented in Figure 1 represents the semantic shift of the word liberty. The circles represent the word liberty at different times, and the letters within the circles represent different notions of that word. The center position in the circle represents the most prevalent meaning of the word. As notions become more dominant, they shift to the center. As others become less dominant, they shift to the outside of the circle, or out of the circle entirely, with the word liberty no longer implying that type of meaning.
The notions of liberty shift gradually, and 250 years later, the shift has been quite dramatic. The original primary meaning has become quite distant from the center in modern usage, while the modern central meaning appeared to not have existed in 1755.
After determining that semantic change had definitely occurred and had direct implications in the Privacy Line, I investigated how semantic change would affect the broader interpretation of the Constitution. I focused on the interpretive theory of Originalism, which relies on the original meaning and understanding of the founding documents as the primary method for determining modern legal decisions. Specifically, my paper asks, “How can law retain original notions in a culture that both legally and linguistically evolves beyond those notions?”
My conclusion in this regard is that semantic change presents a significant flaw in the theory of Originalism, one that in certain cases, may make it very implausible to apply original meaning to modern law. This surprised me and left me somewhat perplexed. I knew that the original foundation of law was important, and likewise felt that it was necessary as a guideline for progressive lawmaking, but it appeared that Originalism simply could not be valid in the face of semantic change.
To address the concern, I outlined a linguistics-based approach that would accommodate for semantic change in constitutional interpretation. Employed by either Originalist or Progressive judges, this method could have different outcomes, but it would always retain a foundation of the original meaning. I explained this idea by stating that it could maintain the focus on original semantics, while allowing the application of the broader, pragmatic meaning in modern culture to be interpreted and determined by the courts.
While I described several examples where this linguistics-based approach could be effectively used in legal interpretation, I believe that further research and scrutiny is in order to determine its efficacy in real legal application.