Pragmatic Analysis Of Formulaic Language In Police Interrogation Transcriptions

Police interrogation not only concerns every criminal suspect’s interests, but the socialstability and the improvement of law. Therefore, police interrogation transcriptions, as part ofthe institutional language type, have received more and more attention from researchers. Thepresent study examines the formulaic police interrogation transcriptions, and analyzes itscharacteristics and pragmatic functions. Pragmatic presupposition, adaptation theory andcooperative principle are as the main perspectives of the present study to chiefly analyze howthe interrogator and the interrogee utilize language skills to communicate and negotiate in policeinterrogation.Based on the analysis of the interrogation transcriptions collected from EconomicInvestigation Department of Ningbo, we summarize such six characteristics as formulaic feature,fairness and unfairness, legitimacy, conflict, goal-oriented communication. With such theoriesas pragmatic presupposition, adaptation theory and cooperative principle, we try to study theformulaic police interrogation transcriptions, focusing on analyzing how the interrogatorskillfully questions the interrogee and how the interrogee dodges the interrogator’scross-examination with the supposed message, how the interrogator accomplishespsychological adaptation and contextual adaptation to make sure that the interrogation goes on,and how the interrogee abides by and violates the cooperative principle.As police interrogation transcriptions have their own classic characteristics different fromordinary language, the interrogator should pay attention to the use of language and theapplication of language strategies as well as the interrogee’s psychological activity in a specificcontext. It is hoped that the present study will be helpful for judicial workers and researchers onlegal language pragmatics.