On The Use Of "Shifou"-Prefaced Questions In Chinese Police Interrogation

The present study is conducted on the questioning strategies used in police interrogation. The focus of this study is the use and function of "shifou" (是否) -prefaced questions in Chinese police interrogation. The choosing of such questions is understood as an adaptive linguistic choice-making process, with a view to describing and understanding the complexity, functionality and dynamics of the interactional phenomenon concerned. After reviewing the previous studies, the author adopts Verschueren's Theory of Linguistic Adaptation (2000) as the theoretical framework. Based upon this theory, we argue that police interrogation is an adaptive choice-making process by the interrogators according to the constantly changing context, the main components of which are the physical settings, institutional power asymmetry and psychological motivations. An analytical framework has also been constructed for describing and interpreting police interrogation on the basis of the three contextual correlates already identified in Verschueren's understanding of language use as adaptation.From the data collected for the present study, we find that in Chinese police interrogation, questioners constantly use "shifou" -prefaced questions to adapt to the changing context, and, in turn, to realize the communicative goals. We hold that, during the process of investigating key facts and details, "shifou"-prefaced questions play the important role of topic-marking and topic-focusing. What's more important is that these questions, with the formal meaning of the term "shifou" in Chinese, effectively help the questioners to keep a firm control on the moving and development of the conversation so that the deviation tricks of the suspects can be effectively prevented.