An Adaptation-Informed Discourse Analysis Of Small Talk In Police Interrogation

With the advancement of the construction of the rule of law in China,people’s legal awareness has been continuously improved and more attention has been given to the standardization of the process of law enforcement.Since the suspect’s statement or confession plays an irreplaceable role in the whole evidence chain,how to obtain a voluntary and true statement or confession from the suspect without harming his or her legitimate rights has become the focus of discussion for both the legal community and the linguistic community.Due to the imbalance of discourse power between the policemen and the suspects brought about by the institutional characteristics of the talk in a police station,the discourse of investigative interrogation often gets into deadlock.Based on Verschueren’s(1999)adaptation theory,this paper explores the formal and functional use of small talk in investigative interrogation.The data for this study comes from transcripts of ten sessions of videotaped interrogation talk from six criminal cases in a police station in the city of X in 2020.This paper tries to investigate the mechanism of small talk as a communicative strategy in a police interrogation,from the following aspects,namely,its location,triggering condition,common topics,sequential organizations,and the basic functions.From the perspective of adaptation theory,small talk is a context-based conversation with certain communicative purposes.Detailed discourse analysis finds that:(1)Small talk can occur in exchanges concerning either procedural or substantial matters in legal communication.(2)Silence,interruption,and repetition often trigger the occurrence of small talk.(3)Topics of small talk in an investigative interrogation include phatic communion,empathy topics,and family-related topics.(4)The sequential organizations of small talk can be divided into linear mode and derived mode.(5)Small talk has the communicative functions of establishing a less confrontational relationship between the suspect and the investigator,creating favorable conditions for investigative interrogation,and persuasion and coercion.It can be seen that small talk can effectively alleviate the identity conflicts between the investigators and the suspects and ensure the continuity of the interrogation process.Therefore,this study on the mechanism of small talk helps to promote the progress of interrogation discourse.