Santa Fe Institute, Santa Fe, NM 87501;
Department of History, University of Sussex, Brighton BN1 9RH, United Kingdom; and.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2014 Jul 1;111(26):9419-24. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1405984111. Epub 2014 Jun 16.
The jury trial is a critical point where the state and its citizens come together to define the limits of acceptable behavior. Here we present a large-scale quantitative analysis of trial transcripts from the Old Bailey that reveal a major transition in the nature of this defining moment. By coarse-graining the spoken word testimony into synonym sets and dividing the trials based on indictment, we demonstrate the emergence of semantically distinct violent and nonviolent trial genres. We show that although in the late 18th century the semantic content of trials for violent offenses is functionally indistinguishable from that for nonviolent ones, a long-term, secular trend drives the system toward increasingly clear distinctions between violent and nonviolent acts. We separate this process into the shifting patterns that drive it, determine the relative effects of bureaucratic change and broader cultural shifts, and identify the synonym sets most responsible for the eventual genre distinguishability. This work provides a new window onto the cultural and institutional changes that accompany the monopolization of violence by the state, described in qualitative historical analysis as the civilizing process.
陪审团审判是国家及其公民汇聚一堂，界定可接受行为界限的关键时刻。在此，我们对来自老贝利的审判记录进行了大规模的定量分析，揭示了这一定义时刻性质的重大转变。通过将口语证词粗分为同义词集，并根据起诉书对审判进行分类，我们展示了语义上明显不同的暴力和非暴力审判类型的出现。我们表明，尽管在 18 世纪后期，暴力犯罪审判的语义内容在功能上与非暴力犯罪审判无法区分，但长期的、世俗的趋势使该系统越来越清晰地区分暴力和非暴力行为。我们将这个过程分解为驱动它的变化模式，确定官僚变革和更广泛的文化变革的相对影响，并确定最终导致类型可区分性的同义词集。这项工作为我们提供了一个新的视角，观察伴随着国家对暴力的垄断而发生的文化和制度变化，这些变化在定性历史分析中被描述为文明化进程。
