A Critical Analysis Of Police Interrogation Discourse

The present study belongs to a newly emerging and promising cross-disciplinary research, referred to as law and language (Forensic Linguistics). The present study explores the power indicators during police interrogation practice so as to evidence the claim that police interrogators override suspects in an all around way. Police interrogators undertake an“authoritative”discursive role in police-suspect confrontation. Police interrogators are accustomed to exerting this discursive power and never reflect on its barrier to the realization of institutional goals. Police officers, therefore, should lower figure to strike a better balance in the asymmetrical power relationship between the interrogators and suspects. They are advised to adapt a change in discursive roles and conduct“interview”instead of“interrogation”.Chapter 1 introduces“forensic linguistics”and summarizes the recent study in police interrogation discourse so as to provide an academic background of the present study. It also conveys the purpose, contents and significance of the present research. Chapter 2 defines the working concept of“POWER”in the present study and introduces some basic ideas and approaches concerning critical discourse analysis on the basis of a generalization of relevant linguistic theories. It also reveals information about the language data and research methods. Chapter 3 analyzes the institutional features of police interrogation discourse, esp. power in institutional context as the starting point for the study.Chapters 4, 5, and 6 analyze the form of police interrogation discourse by conversation analysis. Chapter 4 descries the overall structure of police interrogation discourse, and puts forward the ideal participant framework to attain institutional goals. Chapter 5 analyzes the“question speech act”of police interrogation discourse to display how police officers exert their power through coercive questions and throw light on the current situation of Chinese police interrogation practice. Chapter 6 proceeds to show police interrogators’dominant discursive power by presenting the various kinds of interaction control tools employed by police interrogators.Chapter 7 shows the overwhelming dominance of police interrogators while in competing with suspects for different versions of event. Chapter 8 describes the“answer speech acts”of suspects. Some strategies are adopted by suspects in response to police interrogators’questions. Not making a list of those strategies, we examine suspects’answers to the coercive questions and to get the main strategies taken by suspects. However, these resistances seem vulnerable before the authoritative police.Chapter 9 concludes the major discoveries of the study, describes implications for interrogation practice. The study advocates police interrogators to adapt a conversational style and make a transformation from“interrogation”to“interview”. In terms of the problems of language use in interrogation, the study offers a recommended version for the normalization of police interrogation language. At last, the strengths and limitations of the study are listed and domains for future study in police interrogation discourse are proposed.