Most any approach to interpretation of the language of law begins with a search for ordinary meaning. Increasingly, judges, scholars, and practitioners are highlighting shortcomings in our means for assessing such meaning. With this in mind, we have proposed the use of the tools of corpus linguistics to take up the task. Our proposals have gained traction but have also seen significant pushback.

The search for ordinary meaning poses a series of questions that are amenable to evaluation and analysis using evidence of language usage. And we have proposed to use the tools of corpus linguistics—tools for assessing patterns of language usage in large databases of naturally occurring language—to introduce transparent, falsifiable evidence on the questions at stake. Our critics raise a series of challenges, asserting that our methods test the wrong language community, pose notice problems, are inaccurate measures, and rest on certain fallacies.

We show that the criticisms are largely in error and ultimately highlight some of the main selling points of our proposed methods. We do so in reference to two canonical Supreme Court cases that have been discussed in the literature in this field (Muscarello v. United States and Taniguchi v. Kan Pacific Saipan, Ltd.) and also a more recent case (Mont v. United States). In analyzing these cases (particularly the most recent one), we also outline a framework for some proposed refinements to the methods we have advocated previously.

大多数解释法律语言的方法都是从寻找普通含义开始的。越来越多的法官、学者和从业者都在强调我们评估这种含义的方法存在的缺陷。考虑到这一点，我们建议使用语料库语言学工具来完成这项任务。我们的提案获得了关注，但也遭到了重大阻力。

对普通意义的搜索提出了一系列问题，这些问题可以使用语言使用的证据进行评估和分析。我们还提议使用语料库语言学的工具——在自然发生的语言的大型数据库中评估语言使用模式的工具——为相关问题引入透明、可证伪的证据。我们的批评者提出了一系列挑战，声称我们的方法测试了错误的语言社区，造成了注意问题，是不准确的措施，并且基于某些谬论。

我们表明批评在很大程度上是错误的，并最终突出了我们提出的方法的一些主要卖点。我们这样做是参考在该领域的文献中讨论过的两个典型的最高法院案例（Muscarello v. United States 和 Taniguchi v. Kan Pacific Saipan, Ltd.）以及最近的一个案例（Mont v. United States ）。在分析这些案例（尤其是最近的案例）时，我们还概述了一个框架，用于对我们之前提倡的方法进行一些改进。