| Sumario: | The writer examines the applied relevance of trial talk for rape shield legislation and efforts to assess the effect of such legal reforms. Drawing on linguistic data from the Kennedy Smith rape trial, he argues that efforts to progressively implement rape shield have thus far been unsuccessful. In addition, he contends that research assessing its impact has been misguided because reformers and researchers have consistently failed to scrutinize empirically the interactional object to which rape shield legislation is applied: the language of evidence in testimony. Considering the social construction of rape's legal facticity, he proposes new ways of interpreting and assessing legal reforms based on an understanding of language use and the performance of knowledge in context.
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