Elizabeth Mertz is a

linguistic Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Linguis ...

and legal anthropologist who is also a

law professor A jurist is a person with expert knowledge of law; someone who analyses and comments on law. This person is usually a specialist legal scholar, mostly (but not always) with a formal qualification in law and often a legal practitioner. In the Uni ...

at the

University of Wisconsin Law School The University of Wisconsin Law School is the professional graduate law school of the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Located in Madison, Wisconsin, the school was founded in 1868. The University of Wisconsin Law School is guided by a "law in ...

, where she teaches family law courses. She has been on the research faculty of the American Bar Foundation since 1989. She has a PhD in

Anthropology Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including past human species. Social anthropology studies patterns of behavi ...

from

Duke University Duke University is a private research university in Durham, North Carolina. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco and electric power industrialist James ...

(where she studied with

Virginia R. Domínguez Virginia Dominguez (born 1952) is a political and legal anthropologist. She is currently the Edward William and Jane Marr Gutgsell Professor of Anthropology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Early life Virginia Dominguez was ...

and William O'Barr) and a JD from

Northwestern University Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston, Illinois. Founded in 1851, Northwestern is the oldest chartered university in Illinois and is ranked among the most prestigious academic institutions in the world. Charte ...

(where she was the John Paul Stevens scholar and a Wigmore Scholar). Her early research focused on language, identity and politics in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, and her dissertation dealt with language shift in Cape Breton

Scottish Gaelic Scottish Gaelic ( gd, Gàidhlig ), also known as Scots Gaelic and Gaelic, is a Goidelic language (in the Celtic branch of the Indo-European language family) native to the Gaels of Scotland. As a Goidelic language, Scottish Gaelic, as well as ...

, drawing on

semiotic anthropology The phrase "semiotic anthropology" was first used by Milton Singer (1978). Singer's work brought together the semiotics of Charles Sanders Peirce and Roman Jakobson with theoretical streams that had long been flowing in and around the University o ...

. Her later research examines the language of U.S. legal education in detail using linguistic anthropological approaches (see her book ''The Language of Law School''). She writes on

semiotics Semiotics (also called semiotic studies) is the systematic study of sign processes ( semiosis) and meaning making. Semiosis is any activity, conduct, or process that involves signs, where a sign is defined as anything that communicates something ...

, anthropology, and law, among other topics. She has been editor of ''

Law & Social Inquiry Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior,Robertson, ''Crimes against humanity'', 90. with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been vario ...

'' and of ''PoLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review''.Elizabeth Mertz. "Editor's Introductions." ''PoLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review'', Vol. 31(1)(2) (2008); Vol. 32 (1)(2)(2009); Vol. 33(1)(S1)(2)(2010); Vol. 34(1)(2011)(Bureaucracy Symposium Introduction)
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Personal

She is the daughter of the late

Barbara Mertz Barbara Louise Mertz (September 29, 1927 – August 8, 2013) was an American author who wrote under her own name as well as under the pseudonyms Elizabeth Peters and Barbara Michaels. In 1952, she received a PhD in Egyptology from the Univers ...

Publications

* 2007. ''The Language of Law School: Learning to 'Think Like a Lawyer'' (Oxford: Oxford University Press). * 2007. acaulay, Friedman, & Mertz''Law In Action: A Socio-Legal Reader'' (New York: Foundation Press). * 2002. reenhouse, Mertz, & Warren, eds.''Ethnography in Unstable Places: Everyday Lives in Contexts of Dramatic Political Change'' (Durham, NC: Duke University Press). * 1992. "Language, law and social meanings: linguistic anthropological contributions to the study of law." ''Law & Society Review'' 26(2):413-445. * 1985. ertz & Parmentier'Semiotic Mediation: Sociocultural and Psychological Perspectives'' (Orlando, FL: Academic Press).

References

External links

ABF webpageUniversity of Wisconsin webpage
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mertz, Elizabeth American anthropologists American semioticians Duke University alumni Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law alumni University of Wisconsin Law School faculty Living people Year of birth missing (living people)