ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to give coherence to sociology of law’s past and present by identifying the theoretical themes. All of the theorists—be they classical or contemporary, functionalists or conflict theorists, jurists or sociologists— highlighted the connection between legal phenomena and social structure. The end of the twentieth century is, temporally and analytically, a transitional period for legal sociology. Postmodern theorizing must likewise involve an integration, or synthesis, of seemingly disparate and diverging theoretical orientarions and subjects of analysis. Sociolegal theorizing that focuses on language must address the postmodern questions of legal reflexivity, the multiplicity of legal meanings, and the law’s inherent paradoxes and contradictions. Sociology of law appears to be on the threshold of a paradigmatic breakthrough as it searches for a mode of theorizing suitable to understanding the different dimensions of postmodern society. When utilized individually, each of the theoretical orientations offers the legal sociologist a penetrating and precise analysis of sociolegal reality.
