A license to dismiss: A Forensic discourse analysis of “Caught in Providence” courtroom hearings

Document Type : Original Article

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Department of English Language, Literature & Simultaneous Interpretation, Faculty of Humanities, Al-Azhar University in Cairo.

Abstract

Forensic linguistics is an emerging interdisciplinary approach to linguistics and law that is getting crucial nowadays. It is a sub-field of linguistics which is concerned with written and oral interaction in legal contexts. Forensic Linguistics encompasses various areas such as Auditory Phonetics, Acoustic Phonetics, Semantics, Discourse and Pragmatics as well as Language of the Law and Language of the courtroom which investigates the language used by judges, lawyers and witnesses. The present study applies a qualitative descriptive approach to analyze ten videos of “Caught in Providence” courtroom hearings as a unique model for forensic discourse. It applies Griffiths Question Map (GQM) developed by Griffiths and Milne (2006) and theory of politeness by Brown and Levinson (1987) to investigate the types of questions used in “Caught in Providence” courtroom hearings as well as the politeness techniques adopted to highlight their significance in presenting a distinctive forensic discourse. The findings of the present study show that “Caught in Providence” courtroom hearings have unique characteristics as forensic discourse. The study invites further investigation of courtroom hearings in different countries to highlight aspects of similarities and differences.

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