The constructed voice in courtroom cross-examination
Issue: Vol 22 No. 2 (2015)
Journal: International Journal of Speech Language and the Law
Subject Areas: Linguistics
DOI: 10.1558/ijsll.v22i2.17895
Abstract:
This article examines the evidential and evaluative functions of ‘constructed dialogue’ (Tannen 1989), also called direct reported speech, in the cross-examination of two defendants in a US civil suit. The lawsuit is brought against two detention officers who were on duty when the plaintiff’s husband, an inmate at a prison, died from meningitis. The plaintiff’s attorney constructs the dialogue of the defendants in an ‘alternate reality’ to suggest what the defendants should have done but failed to do to help, thereby providing evidence for his argument that the defendants acted unreasonably and inviting the jury to evaluate the defendants’ conduct as indifferent and blameworthy. The attorney also imputes dialogue to the defendants and other individuals involved in the case, again providing evidence for his claims and leading the jury to evaluate the defendants’ conduct as morally reprehensible and legally culpable.
Author: Marta Baffy, Alexandria Marsters
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