ABSTRACT
This
paper discusses language-discursive questions in relation to the way the police
approach suspects in the street in Brazil. The use of police language is
discussed and questions are raised about the discourse used by police officers.
What are the specifics of their discourse in this type of interaction? The objective
is to analyze the effect of police speech on interaction with suspects; to
discuss its relevance to the success of this type of interaction and to
demonstrate the problems created for the police, taking into account the
conditions of production and the sociolinguistic variables involved. Nine
videos of police stopping suspects in the street were analyzed. One of the
interactional features examined is the roles of speaker and listener and how
far the differing statuses of the participants creates differing interactional
roles and possibilities (Coulthard, 1985). The results indicate that some 68%
of the utterances are interrogative, whereas 26% are imperative and 6% are
affirmative and exclamatory sentences. There is predominance of confirmation
expressions because the police officer needs to get confirmation. Interestingly
the results showed that ex-prisoner suspects knew the legal terms and cited
some of the articles of the criminal code. The speech of the suspects is
clearly designed to characterize them as hardworking, honest, reliable and
disciplined. The purpose of this analysis is to derive concepts interviewing
strategies (Shuy, 2005; Heydon, 2005) for subsequent use in Police Training
courses, in order to enable them the relevant language skills and a quality and efficient service.
KEYWORDS: Discourse analysis; Police; Suspects;
Forensic Linguistics.
REFERENCES
COULTHARD,
R. (1985). An introduction to discourse
analysis. 2ed. London: Longman.
HEYDON,
G. (2005). The language of police
interviewing: a critical analysis. New York: Palgrave.
SHUY,
R. (2005). Creating language crimes: how
law enforcement uses (and misuses) language. Oxford: OUP.
Dr. Alexandre Timbane(ACIPOL) and Dr. Mounir Triki (Univ. of Sfax)
.JPG)
Participants
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