Ammunition for closing arguments: Attorneys' coding and shaping of witness testimony for rhetorical power

This dissertation focuses on the creation, maintenance and culmination of arguments throughout courtroom trials in order to analyze the discursive practices through which testimony and evidence are produced for juries. The study investigates how attorneys interpret actual trial material and how they use language to empower their arguments. Direct reported speech (DRS) during the course of a trial is examined to determine how and why attorneys use it, particularly as they quote from it for rhetorical purposes in their closing arguments. Though offered as the words of the witness, the testimony is in fact shaped in fine detail by the structure of the questions the attorneys use to elicit it. The dissertation shows the ways in which attorneys make use of the entire trial to create and deliver a convincing closing argument. Linguistic scrutiny of direct reported speech and footing reveals the discursive strategies attorneys use to shape witnesses' testimony to maximally benefit their own cases.