WEIGHING THE EVIDENCE - LEGAL DISCOURSE IN THE 19TH-CENTURY SPANISH FEMINIST ARENAL,CONCEPCION

In her remarkable 1861 book, The Woman of the Future, Concepcion Arena l appropriated legal discourse, a wholly male domain, to plead the cas e for women's rights, in particular, education. Two different types of legal discourse emerge in her writing: that of written legislative la w and that of courtroom advocacy. The computer can gather evidence of both; however, each mode of discourse requires different measures to w eigh the significance of the findings. Easily obtainable repeat rates serve as an useful measure that can be related to what recognition psy chologists call ''retention intervals'' and that are easily understood by non-statistically oriented literary scholars. Analysis focuses on Arenal's use of typography, lexicon, repetition, ideological challenge , interactive discourse, and prescriptive speech acts of the legal reg ister to advocate the cause of women in nineteenth-century Spain.