A Study Of Police Interrogation

Discourse is often described as "language-in-use" or "socially situated text and talk". As an institutional interaction in the police organization, police interrogation embodies discursive features different from ordinary conversation in terms of schema, roles, strategies and power. Taking police interrogation as a genre, supported by genre theories in discourse studies, this study makes a genre analysis of interrogation texts. From a holistic genre perspective, the study first examines the internal structural characteristics and linguistic features of these genre texts. It then probes into the interrelationships between the interrogation discourse and the socio-cultural context in which these genre texts reside. By exploring identity construction and power control in the police interrogation as an institutional discourse, and by highlighting the influence and restriction imposed by such institutional context, the study attempts to reveal the essence of police interrogation as a social action. It is hoped that the present study may serve as a valuable contribution to the development of forensic linguistics in China.The present dissertation consists of seven chapters. Chapter I is an introduction, presenting the research background of police interrogation from both the science of investigation and linguistics. Research purposes and the methodology together with analytical corpora are discussed and the justification of the study is also examined.Chapter II deals with the theoretical background of this research. It begins with a discussion of the concept of genre and makes a comparative analysis of three main schools of genre theories. Then, a critical review of the previous studies on forensic linguistics both at home and abroad is provided, with a focus on studies relevant to the present study of the police interrogation reported in this dissertation.Chapters III and IV center on an analysis of text-internal factors of police interrogation. Firstly, based on a sample analysis, Chapter III explores discursive features of three stages within the macro structure of interrogation genre texts, and the communicative pattern of the two parties involved in the interrogation. Chapter IV provides a corpus-based account of the questions used by the police, elaborating on information produced by interaction in the interrogation process with various question foci and presuppositions. Functions of presupposition in the interrogation are identified. Issues such as interdiscursivity of the police interrogation in the world of reality, appropriation and embedding of generic resources are also addressed.The following two chapters are concerned with the effects of the institutional context on police interrogation. Chapter V analyzes how the police impose power and authority through language. Owing to the distinctive social and discursive roles of two parties in the communication process, the police interrogation has its characteristic features of coercion and asymmetric power. The chapter explores how the institutional power controls and dominates the selection of language resources by the two parties in the interrogation.Chapter VI discusses the roles of discourse and the manifestation of identities of the two parties in the police interrogation. As conflicts are evident between the communicative purposes of the police and suspects, the chapter examines the evolution of identities of the two parties following a dynamic interrogation mode.Chapter VII sums up the procedures and the major research findings of the study. It then switches attention to the contributions and limitations of the study. Implications and areas for further research are also examined and proposed.