Hostname: page-component-f554764f5-qhdkw Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-04-22T22:57:39.373Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The social consequences of language ideologies in courtroom cross-examination

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 August 2012

Diana Eades
Diana Eades
Affiliation:
Linguistics, University of New England, Armidale 2351, [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Investigations of inequality within the courtroom have mostly examined ways in which discourse structure and rules of use constrain witnesses. This article goes beyond interactional practices to deal with four central language ideologies, which both facilitate these practices and impact on the interpretation and understanding of what people say in evidence. The article further shows that language ideologies can have much wider consequences beyond the courtroom. Focusing on language ideologies involved in storytelling and retelling in cross-examination, and using an Australian example, the article traces the recontextualization of part of a witness's story from an initial investigative interview to cross-examination, then to its evaluation in closing arguments and the judicial decision, as well as its (mis)representation in the print media. The analysis reveals the role of these language ideologies in the perpetuation of neocolonial control over Australian Aboriginal people. (Language ideologies, courtroom talk, cross-examination, decontextualization, recontextualization, neocolonial control, Australia)*

Type
Articles
Information
Language in Society , Volume 41 , Issue 4 , September 2012 , pp. 471 - 497
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

ABC (Australian Broadcasting Commission) (1996). Black and blue. Four Corners TV documentary, 8 March.Google Scholar
Ainsworth, Janet (2008). “You have the right to remain silent … But only if you ask for it just so”: The role of linguistic ideology in American police interrogation law. International Journal of Speech, Language and the Law 15(1):1–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Angermeyer, Philipp Sebastian (2008). Creating monolingualism in the multilingual courtroom. Sociolinguistic Studies 2(3):385–403.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Basso, Keith H. (1970). “To give up on words”: Silence in Apache culture. Southwestern Journal of Anthropology 26(3):213–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bauman, Richard, & Briggs, Charles L. (1990). Poetics and performance as critical perspectives on language and social life. Annual Review of Anthropology 19:59–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berk-Seligson, Susan (2009). Coerced confessions. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blommaert, Jan (2005). Discourse. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boyd, Russell, & Hopkins, Anthony (2010). Cross-examination of child sexual assault complainants: Concerns about the application of s41 of the Evidence Act. Criminal Law Journal 34:149–66.Google Scholar
Ceci, Stephen J., & Bruck, Maggie (1993). Suggestibility of the child witness: A historical review and synthesis. Psychological Bulletin 113:403–39.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cicourel, Aaron V. (1981). Notes on the integration of micro- and macro-levels of analysis. In Knorr-Cetina, Karin D. & Cicourel, Aaron V. (eds.), Advances in social theory and methodology: Toward an integration of micro- and macro-sociologies, 51–80. Boston: Routledge and Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Collins, Randall (1988). The micro contribution to macro sociology. Sociological Theory 6:242–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Conley, John M., & O'Barr, William M. (2005). Just words: Law, language and power. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Criminal Justice Commission (1996). Aboriginal witnesses in Queensland's criminal courts. Brisbane: Criminal Justice Commission.Google Scholar
Cotterill, Janet (2003). Language and power in court: A linguistic analysis of the O. J. Simpson trial. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cunneen, Chris (1994). Enforcing genocide? Aboriginal young people and the police. In White, Rob & Adler, Christine (eds.), The police and young people in Australia, 128–58. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Cunneen, Chris (2001). Conflict, politics and crime: Aboriginal communities and the police. Sydney: Allen and Unwin.Google Scholar
Eades, Diana (1992). Aboriginal English and the Law: Communicating with Aboriginal English speaking clients. A handbook for legal practitioners. Brisbane: Queensland Law Society.Google Scholar
Eades, Diana (1994). A case of communicative clash: Aboriginal English and the legal system. In Gibbons, John (ed.), Language and the law, 234–64. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Eades, Diana (1996a). Legal recognition of cultural differences in communication: The case of Robyn Kina. Language and Communication 16(3):215–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eades, Diana (1996b). Verbatim courtroom transcripts and discourse analysis. In Kniffka, Hannes (ed.), Recent developments in forensic linguistics, 241–54. Frankfurt: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Eades, Diana (2000). “I don't think it's an answer to the question”: Silencing Aboriginal witnesses in court. Language in Society 29(2):161–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eades, Diana (2006). Lexical struggle in court: Aboriginal Australians vs. the state. Journal of Sociolinguistics 10(2):153–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eades, Diana (2007). Understanding Aboriginal silence in legal contexts. In Kotthoff, Helga & Spencer-Oatey, Helen (eds.), Handbook of intercultural communication, 285–301. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eades, Diana (2008). Courtroom talk and neocolonial control. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eades, Diana (2010). Sociolinguistics and the legal process. Bristol: Multilingual Matters.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eades, Diana (2011). Language ideologies in the discursive testing of witnesses' stories in court: Examining prior inconsistent statements. Paper presented at the First International Conference on Law, Language and Discourse, Hong Kong, August.Google Scholar
Ehrlich, Susan (2001). Representing rape: Language and sexual consent. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Foley, Matthew (1984). Aborigines and the police. In Hanks, Peter & Keon-Cohen, Bryan (eds.), Aborigines and the law: Essays in memory of Elizabeth Eggleston, 160–90. Sydney: Allen and Unwin.Google Scholar
Gibbons, John (2003). Forensic linguistics. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar
Heller, Monica (2001). Undoing the macro/micro dichotomy: Ideology and categorisation in a linguistic minority school. In Coupland, Nikolas, Sarangi, Srikant, & Candlin, Christopher N. (eds.), Sociolinguistics and social theory, 212–34. London: Pearson Education Limited.Google Scholar
Jefferson, Gail (1989). Preliminary notes on a possible metric which provides for a “Standard Maximum” silence of approximately one second in a conversation. In Roger, Derek & Bull, Peter (eds.), Conversation: An interdisciplinary perspective, 166–96. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.Google Scholar
Jönsson, Linda, & Linell, Per (1991). Story generations: From dialogical interviews to written reports in police interrogations. Text 11(3):419–40.Google Scholar
Komter, Martha (2002). The suspect's own words: The treatment of written statements in Dutch courtrooms. Forensic Linguistics 9(2):168–92.Google Scholar
Komter, Martha (2006). From talk to text: The interactional construction of a police record. Research on Language in Social Interaction 39(3):201–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kroskrity, Paul V. (2004). Language ideologies. In Duranti, Alessandro (ed.), A companion to linguistic anthropology, 496–517. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Kurzon, Dennis (1995). The right of silence: A socio-pragmatic model of interpretation. Journal of Pragmatics 23:55–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Liberman, Kenneth (1981). Understanding Aborigines in Australian courts of law. Human Organization 40:247–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Luban, David. (1999). Twenty theses on adversarial ethics. In Michael Lavarch & Helen Stacy (eds.), Beyond the adversarial system, 134–54. Sydney: Federation Press.Google Scholar
Maryns, Katrijn (2006). The asylum speaker: Language in the Belgian asylum procedure. Manchester: St Jerome Press.Google Scholar
Matoesian, Gregory (1993). Reproducing rape: Domination through talk in the courtroom. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Matoesian, Gregory (2001). Law and the language of identity: Discourse in the William Kennedy Smith rape trial. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mertz, Elizabeth (2007). The language of law school: Learning to think like a lawyer. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mildren, Dean (1999). Redressing the imbalance: Aboriginal people in the criminal justice system. Forensic Linguistics 6(1):137–60.Google Scholar
Mooney v James (1949). Victorian Law Reports 1949 22–32. (Victorian Supreme Court).Google Scholar
Morrow, Phyllis (1996). Yup'ik Eskimo agents and American legal agencies: Perspectives on compliance and resistance. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 2:405–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mushin, Ilana, & Gardner, Rod (2009). Silence is talk: Conversational silence in Australian Aboriginal talk-in-interaction. Journal of Pragmatics 41:2033–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Norrick, Neal R. (1998). Retelling stories in spontaneous conversation. Discourse Processes 25(1):75–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rock, Frances (2001). The genesis of a witness statement. Forensic Linguistics 8(2):44–72.Google Scholar
SCRGSP (Steering Committee for the Review of Government Service Provision) (2011). Overcoming Indigenous disadvantage: Key indicators 2011. Melbourne: Productivity Commission.Google Scholar
Schiffrin, Deborah (2006). In other words: Variation in reference and narrative. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scollon, Ron (1985). The machine stops: Silence in the metaphor of malfunction. In Tannen, Deborah & Saville-Troike, Muriel (eds.), Perpectives on silence, 21–30. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.Google Scholar
Sercombe, Howard (1995). The face of the criminal is Aboriginal: Representations of Aboriginal young people in the West Australian newspaper. In Bessant, Judith, Carrington, Kerry, & Cook, Sandy (eds.), Cultures of crime and violence: The Australian experience, 76–94. Melbourne: La Trobe University Press.Google Scholar
Solan, Lawrence M., & Tiersma, Peter M. (2005). Speaking of crime: The language of criminal justice. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Solomon, David (1993). A case of US and THEM. The Brisbane Courier Mail, 18 December.Google Scholar
Swann, Joan; Deumert, Ana; Lillis, Theresa; & Mesthrie, Rajend (2004). A dictionary of sociolinguistics. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
Tiersma, Peter M. (1999). Legal language. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Trigger, David S. (1995). “Everyone's agreed, the West is all you need”: Ideology, media and Aboriginality in Western Australia. Media Information Australia 75:102–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Trinch, Shonna (2003). Latinas' narratives of domestic abuse: Discrepant versions of violence. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walker, Jamie (1994). Aborigines stand firm on Yock accusation. The Australian, 7 April.Google Scholar
Wood, J. (2004). Child witnesses: The New South Wales experience. Paper presented at the Australian Institute of Judicial Administration: Child witnesses—Best practice for courts.Google Scholar
Woodbury, Hanni (1984). The strategic use of questions in court. Semiotica 48(3/4):197–228.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Woolard, Kathryn A. (1998). Introduction: Language ideology as a field of inquiry. In Schieffelin, Bambi B., Woolard, Kathryn A., & Kroskrity, Paul V. (eds.), Language ideologies: Practice and theory, 3–47. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Woolard, Kathryn A., & Schieffelin, Bambi B. (1994). Language ideology. Annual Review of Anthropology 23:55–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar