Las inocentes preguntas sobre el significado durante los testimonios
Keywords:
discursive strategy. evaluation. questions. courtroom.Abstract
From the perspective of situated discourse analysis and, in particular, from the point of view of theories that analyze institutional and workplace discourse (Drew and Heritage, 1992; Sarangi and Roberts, 1999), this article examines a discursive strategy used by trial lawyers during the evidential part of a criminal trial. The data come from the official records of interactions between lay witnesses and trial lawyers during direct and cross-examinations in a trial that took place in the US in 2002. The strategy described includes the use of questions about the meaning of particular everyday expressions. The implicit evaluation is generated through the apparent attention drawn to the meaning of the expressions and through the sequential location of the questions. The analysis reveals that the function of this strategy is to covertly discredit witnesses of the other side.
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