The Discourse of Police Interviews

The Discourse of Police Interviews

Edited by: Marianne Mason and Frances Rock

University of Chicago Press | 2020

DOI: https://doi.org/10.7208/9780226647821

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Contents

About this book

Forensic linguistics, or the study of language and the law, is a growing field of scholarly and public interest. Yet books on the subject have predominantly been introductions to the field or aimed at summarizing its applications, often with a focus on a single aspect of the legal system. The Discourse of Police Interviews aims to further the discussion by focusing exclusively on how police interviews are constructed and used to investigate and prosecute crimes.

The first book to focus exclusively on police interview dialogue, The Discourse of Police Interviews examines leading debates, approaches, and topics in contemporary police interview research. Among other topics, the book explores the sociolegal, psychological, and discursive framework of popular police interview techniques employed in the United States and the United Kingdom, such as PEACE and Reid, and the discursive practices of institutional representatives like police officers and interpreters that can influence the construction and quality of linguistic evidence. Together, the contributions situate the police interview as part of a complex, and multistage, criminal justice process. Despite the role of discourse in potentially shaping legal outcomes, the use of linguistic analysis to understand the legal process is yet to be fully and uniformly embraced, and the book will be of interest to both scholars and practitioners in a variety of fields, such as linguistic anthropology, interpreting studies, criminology, law, and sociology.

Author information

Marianne Mason is assistant professor of translation and interpreting studies and linguistics at James Madison University. She is the author of Courtroom Interpreting. Frances Rock is a reader in the Centre for Language and Communication Research at Cardiff University and a founding member of the forensic linguistics research network Cardiff Language and Law.

Reviews

“The Discourse of Police Interviews is poised to make an important contribution to forensic discourse analysis and language study. The book is useful in that it brings many approaches to and analyses of policing and police discourse in one place, making it useful for teaching and research alike. The topic is timely, the chapters are well written, and the analyses are tight and compelling and sophisticated while remaining clear.”

— Jennifer Andrus, University of Utah

“To my knowledge, there are no other edited volumes devoted exclusively to the discourse of police interviews and interrogations. This book is thus essential reading for scholars and students of language and the law. All of the chapters are empirically grounded, drawing their data from actual police interviews and interrogations. A number of the chapters investigate what the editors refer to as the ‘institutionally endorsed’ methods and techniques; others examine specific discursive practices that have an influence on the kind of ‘evidence’ to emerge from police interviews/interrogations, including the way that police officers and interpreters can shape the trajectory of these interactions. Still others examine the changes that occur when police interviews are transformed into written police records, records which in some jurisdictions play a substantive role in trials.”

— Susan Ehrlich, York University

Frontmatter Free access PDF PDF	i
Contents Free access PDF PDF	v
List of Conventions Free access PDF PDF	ix
Chapter 1. Introduction Marianne Mason Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	1
SECTION I . The Discourse of Reid and PEACE
Chapter 2. When Police Interview Victims of Sexual Assault: Comparing Written Guidance to Interactional Practice Elizabeth Stokoe, Charles Antaki, Emma Richardson and Sara Willott Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	21
Chapter 3. Obtaining Valid Discourse from Suspects PEACE-fully: What Role for Rapport and Empathy? Ray Bull and Bianca Baker Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	42
Chapter 4. The Guilt- Presumptive Nature of Custodial Interrogations in the United States: The Use of Confrontation, Appeals to Self- Interest, and Sympathy/ Minimization in the Reid Technique Marianne Mason Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	65
Chapter 5. The Discourse Structure of Blame Mitigation in a Police Interrogation Philip Gaines Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	85
SECTION II. Police Interview Dynamics and Negotiation
Chapter 6. Now the Rest of the Story: The Collaborative Production of Confession Narratives in Police Interrogations Gary C. David and James Trainum Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	113
Chapter 7. Patterns of Cooperation between Police Interviewers with Suspected Sex Offenders Tatiana Tkacukova and Gavin E. Oxburgh Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	136
Chapter 8. Supporting Competing Narratives: A Membership Categorization Analysis of Identity Work in Police-Detainee Talk David Yoong and Ayeshah Syed Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	156
SECTION III. Discursive Transformations in Bilingual Police Interviews
Chapter 9. Narrative Construction in Interpreted Police Interviews Ikuko Nakane Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	179
Chapter 10. Interactional Management in a Simulated Police Interview: Interpreters’ Strategies Sandra Hale, Jane Goodman-Delahunty and Natalie Martschuk Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	200
Chapter 11. Non-Native Speakers, Miranda Rights, and Custodial Interrogation Bethany K. Dumas Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	227
SECTION IV. The Discursive Journey and Institutional Applications of Police Interviews
Chapter 12. “Tell Me in Your Own Words . . .”: Reconciling Institutional Salience and Witness- Compatible Language in Police Interviews with Women Reporting Rape Nicci MacLeod Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	249
Chapter 13. “Are You Saying You Were Stabbed . . . ?”: Multimodality, Embodied Action, and Dramatized Formulations in “Fixing” the Facts in Police Interviews with Suspects Alison Johnson Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	268
Chapter 14. Functions of Transmodal Metalanguage for Collaborative Writing in Police- Witness Interviews Frances Rock Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	299
Chapter 15. Reconstructing Suspects’ Stories in Various Police Record Styles Tessa van Charldorp Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	329
Chapter 16. Police Records in Court: The Narrative Fore- and Backgrounding of Information by Judges in Inquisitorial Criminal Court Fleur van der Houwen Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	349
Index Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	367

The Discourse of Police Interviews

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