Your browser does not support the PubReader view.
Go to this page to see a list of supporting browsers.
The Korean Association for the Study of English Language and Linguistics
[ Article ]
Korea Journal of English Language and Linguistics - Vol. 22, No. 0, pp.1253-1268
ISSN: 1598-1398 (Print) 2586-7474 (Online)
Print publication date 31 Jan 2022
Received 09 Sep 2022 Revised 11 Nov 2022 Accepted 30 Nov 2022
DOI: https://doi.org/10.15738/kjell.22..202211.1253

Speech Comments and Intertextuality: Evidence from Courtroom Discourse

Krisda Chaemsaithong
Professor, Dept. of English Language and Literature, Hanyang University, Tel: 02) 2220-0753 krisda@hanyang.ac.kr


© 2022 KASELL All rights reserved
This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons License, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

Underpinned by the assumption that all texts are heteroglossic and polyphonous (Bakhtin 1981), this study proposes to examine an area that has been neglected in the scholarship of intertextuality. Attending to the opening speech event of American criminal trials, this study identifies the forms and functions of common speech comments and explicates the ways in which these comments provide different contextualization cues about how a statement (and other relevant intertextual aspects) should be processed and understood. The findings reveal five common categories of speech comments, and these comments become instrumental for speech presenters to achieve the communicative goals of persuasion in this setting. These speech comments function to mediate both the propositional content of the opening statement as well as negotiate the interpersonal relationship between the presenter and the audience.

Keywords:

courtroom discourse, intertextuality, speech comments, speech representation, metacommunication

Acknowledgments

This study was supported by the research fund of Hanyang University (HY-2021). I also thank the anonymous reviewers and the editor for insightful comments.

References

  • Bakhtin, M. 1981. The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays. Austin: University of Texas Press.
  • Caffi, C., 2006 [1993]. Metapragmatics. In K. Brown, ed., Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, 2nd ed., 81-88. Oxford: Pergamon. [https://doi.org/10.1016/B0-08-044854-2/00317-5]
  • Carranza, I. 2008. Metapragmatics in a courtroom genre. Pragmatics 18, 169-188. [https://doi.org/10.1075/prag.18.2.01car]
  • Chaemsaithong, K. 2017. Speech reporting in courtroom opening statements. Journal of pragmatics 119, 1-14. [https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2017.08.003]
  • Chaemsaithong, K. and Y. Kim. 2018. From narration to argumentation: Intertextuality in two courtroom genres. Lingua 203, 36-50. [https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lingua.2017.10.003]
  • Clark, H. and R. Gerrig. 1990. Quotations as demonstrations. Language 66, 764-805. [https://doi.org/10.2307/414729]
  • Cotterill, J. 2002. ‘Just one more time…’: Aspects of intertextuality in the trials of O.J. Simpson. In J. Cotterill, ed., Language in the Legal Process, 147-161. New York: Palgrave. [https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230522770_9]
  • Galatolo, R. 2007. Active voicing in court. In E. Holt and R. Cliff, eds., Reporting Talk: Reported Speech in Interaction, 195-220. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511486654.009]
  • Galatolo, R. and M. Mizzau. 2005. Quoting dialogues and the construction of the narrative point of view in legal testimony: The role of prosody and gestures. Journal of the Swiss Association of Communication and Media Research June Issue, 217-232
  • Garzone, G. 2016. Polyphony and dialogism in legal discourse: Focus on syntactic Negation. In G. Tessuto, V.J. Bhatia, G. Garzone, R. Salvi and C. Williams, eds., Constructing Legal Discourses and Social Practices: Issues and Perspectives, 2-27. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
  • Goffman, E. 1981. Footing. In E. Goffman, ed., Forms of Talk, 124-159. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
  • Hartman, D. 1992. Intertextuality and reading: The text, the reader, the author, and the context. Linguistics and Education 4, 295-311. [https://doi.org/10.1016/0898-5898(92)90005-H]
  • Heffer, C. 2010. Narrative in the trial: Constructing crime stories in court. In M. Coulthard and A. Johnson, eds., The Routledge Handbook of Forensic Linguistics, 199-217. London: Routledge.
  • Holt, E. 2009. Reported speech. In J. Ostman and J. Verschueren, eds., Handbook of Pragmatics, 1-19. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. [https://doi.org/10.1075/hop.13.rep2]
  • Hübler, A. and W. Bublitz. 2007. Introducing metapragmatics in use. In W. Bublitz and A. Hübler, eds., Metapragmatics in Use, 1-28. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. [https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.165.02hub]
  • Janny, R. 2007. “So your story now is that…”: Metapragmatic framing strategies in courtroom interrogation. In W. Bublitz and A. Hübler, eds., Metapragmatics in Use, 223-234. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. [https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.165.15jan]
  • Lind, A. and G. Ke. 1985. Opening and closing statements. In S. Kassin and L. Wrightsman, eds., The Psychology of Evidence and Trial Procedure, 229-253. London: Sage.
  • Lubet, S and J. C. Lore. 2020. Modern Trial Advocacy: Analysis and Practice, 6th ed. New York: Wolters Kluwer.
  • Lucy, J. (ed.). 1993. Reflexive Language: Reported Speech and Metapragmatics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511621031]
  • Matoesian, G. 2000. Intertextual authority in reported speech: Production media in the Kennedy Smith rape trial. Journal of Pragmatics 32, 879-914. [https://doi.org/10.1016/S0378-2166(99)00080-6]
  • Matoesian, G. and K. Gilbert. 2018. Multimodal Conduct in the Law: Language, Gesture and Materiality in Legal Interaction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108236362]
  • Mauet, T. 2009. Trials: Strategy, Skills, and the New Powers of Persuasion, 2nd ed. New York: Wolters Kluwer.
  • Moghaddam, M. and S. Ostovar-Namaghi. 2022. Metapragmatics in indirect reports: The degree of reflexivity. Pragmatics 32, 381-402. [https://doi.org/10.1075/prag.21004.mor]
  • Mushin, I. 2001. Evidentiality and Epistemological Stance: Narrative Retelling. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. [https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.87]
  • Niedzelski, N. and D. Preston. 2000. Folk Linguistics. Berlin: Mouton. [https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110803389]
  • Oostdijk, N. 1990. The language of dialogue in fiction. Literary and Linguistic Computing 5, 235-241. [https://doi.org/10.1093/llc/5.3.235]
  • Pennington, N. and R. Hastie. 1991. A cognitive theory of juror decision making: The story mode. Cordoza Law Review 13, 519-557.
  • Philips, S. U. 1986. Reported speech as evidence in an American trial. In D. Tannen and J. Alatis, eds., Language and Linguistics: The Interdependence of Theory, Data, and Application, 154-170. Washington DC: Georgetown University Press.
  • Rose, C. 2015. Fundamental Trial Advocacy, 3rd ed. St. Paul: West Academic Publishing.
  • Spiecker, S. and D. Worthington. 2003. The influence of opening statement/closing argument organization strategy on juror verdict and damage awards. Law and Human Behavior 27, 437-456. [https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1024041201605]
  • Stygall, G. 1994. Trial Language: Differential Discourse Processing and Discursive Formation. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. [https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.26]
  • Thompson, G. 1996. Voices in the text: Discourse perspectives on language reports. Applied Linguistics 17, 501-530. [https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/17.4.501]
  • Thompson, G. and S. Hunston. 2000. Evaluation: An Introduction. In S. Hunston and G. Thompson, eds., Evaluation in Text: Authorial Stance and the Construction of Discourse, 1-27. Oxford: Oxford University Press.