Cover not available
Part of
Legal Pragmatics
Edited by Dennis Kurzon and Barbara Kryk-Kastovsky
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 288] 2018
► pp. 41–64

Chapter 2
“How came you not to cry out?”

Pragmatic effects of negative questioning in child rape trials in the Old Bailey Proceedings 1730–1798

| University of Leeds

This study explores the representation of child rape victims through an examination of the pragmatic effects of negative questioning in eighteenth century trial records in the Old Bailey Proceedings (Hitchcock et al., 2012). We see how victim identities are linguistically constructed through methods of biased, stereotypical, and negative questioning of the rape allegation. Using a combined corpus-based, sociopragmatic, discourse-analytical approach, a corpus of 36 child rape trials has been collected from the larger online database, to explore how the choice of questioning constructs the defendant and the crime in benign ways and the victim in damaging ways. Analysis reveals how ideologies about rape were reproduced in the historical courtroom. Drawing on Reisigl and Wodak’s (2009) “discourse-historical approach” we are able to see how contextual factors, such as rape myths of the time (Simpson 1986), work in conjunction with negative questions to construct problematic victim identities. The legal-pragmatic effects of these questions and their underlying ideologies, which are both reflected and constituted in the social attitudes of the time, are amplified by the legal institution, contributing to a high proportion of not guilty verdicts and indictments to lesser charges. This research reflects on recent calls in the contemporary context for better victim treatment in general and more witness sensitivity in rape trials in particular.

Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2. Negative questions and their ideological origins
    • 2.1Controlling questions
    • 2.2Biased ideologies and rape myths
      • 2.2.1 What is a myth?
      • 2.2.2Rape myths
  • 3.Data
    • 3.1The “bad data” problem
    • 3.2Collecting a sample
  • 4.Analysing the corpus – patterns of meaning and powerful repertoires of practice
  • 5. Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 26 April 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.288.02joh
References
Archer, Dawn
2005 Questions and Answers in the English Courtroom (1640–1760). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2007 “Developing a more detailed picture of the English courtroom (1640–1760): Data and methodological issues facing historical pragmatics.” In Methods in Historical Pragmatics, ed. by S. Fitzmaurice and I. Taavitsainen, 185–218. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Barker-Benfield, G. J.
1992 The Culture of Sensibility. Sex and Society in Eighteenth-Century Britain. Chicago: Chicago University Press.Google Scholar
Barrett, David
2015 “Rape victims will be warned of defence lawyer tactics under new guidelines.” The Telegraph, 19 January 2015. Online: [URL]; accessed July 04, 2016.
BBC
2013 “Could new guidelines have stopped Savile?” Online: [URL]; accessed 04 July 2016.
Bolden, G. and Robinson, J. D.
2011 “Soliciting Accounts with Why-Interrogatives in Conversation. Journal of Communication 61(1), 94–119. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bolinger, D.L.M.
1957 Interrogative Structure of American English: The Direct Question. American Dialect Society 28. University of Alabama: Alabama University Press.Google Scholar
Brennan, M.
1994 Cross-Examining Children in Criminal Courts: Child Welfare under Attack.” In Language and the Law, ed. by J. Gibbons, 199–216. Harlow: Longman.Google Scholar
Charlesworth, H. and Chinkin, C.
2000 The Boundaries of International Law: A Feminist Analysis. Manchester: Manchester University Press.Google Scholar
Charrow, R.P and Charrow, V. R.
1979 “Making Legal Language Understandable: A Psycholinguistic Study of Jury Instruction.” The Columbia Law Review, 79, 1307–1374. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Conde-Silvestre, J. C. and Hernández-Campoy, J. M.
2012 “Introduction.” In The Handbook of Historical Sociolinguistics, ed. by J. M. Hernández-Campoy and J. C. Conde-Silvestre, 1–8. London: John Wiley and Sons. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Crown Prosecution Service
2013 The Rape and Sexual Offences Guidance. Online: [URL]; accessed July 04, 2016.
Culpeper, J. and Kytö, M.
2000 “Data in Historical Pragmatics: Spoken Interaction (Re)Cast as Writing.” Journal of Historical Pragmatics, 1(2), 175–199. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Danet, B.
1980 “Language in the Legal Process.” Law and Society Review, 14, 445–564. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Davidson, R.
2001 “ ‘This Pernicious Delusion’: Law, Medicine, and Child Sexual Abuse in Early-Twentieth-Century Scotland.” Journal of the History of Sexuality, 10(1), 62–77. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Eades, D.
2008 Courtroom Talk and Neocolonial Control. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ehrlich, S.
2001 Representing Rape: Language and Sexual Consent. London and New York: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Emsley, C.
Hitchcock, T. and Shoemaker, R. 2016 The Proceedings – The Value of the Proceedings as a Historical Source, Old Bailey Proceedings Online. ([URL], version 7.0; accessed June 28, 2016)
Emsley, C., Hitchcock, T. and Shoemaker, R.
2017 “Crime and Justice – Crimes Tried at the Old Bailey”, Old Bailey Proceedings Online. ([URL], version 7.0; accessed February 19, 2017).
Flood, D. R.
2012 Rape in Chicago: Race, Myth, and the Courts. Chicago: University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
Garner, B. A.
1995 A Dictionary of Modern Legal Usage. Second Edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Gentleman, A.
2013 Prosecuting Sexual Assault: “Raped all over Again”. The Guardian 13 April 2013 Online: [URL]; accessed 04 July 04, 2016.
Hiltunen, R.
2012 “The Grammar and Structure of Legal Texts.” In The Oxford Handbook of Language and the Law, ed. by P. Tiersma and L. M. Solan, 39–51. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hitchcock, T., Shoemaker, R., Emsley, C., Howard, S.
McLaughlin, J. et al. 2012 The Old Bailey Proceedings Online, 1674–1913 ([URL], version 7.0; accessed March 24, 2012.
Jucker, A.
2000 “English Historical Pragmatics: Problems of Data and Methodology.” In English Diachronic Pragmatics, ed. by G. di Martino and M. Lima, 17–55. Naples: Cuen.Google Scholar
Kebbell, M., Deprez, S. and Wagstaff, G.
2003 “The Direct and Cross-Examination of Complainants and Defendants in Rape Trials: A Quantitative Analysis Of Question Type.†Psychology, Crime and Law, 9(1), 49–59. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Koshik, I.
2002 “A Conversation Analytic Study of Yes/No Questions which Convey Reversed Polarity Assertions.” Journal of Pragmatics 34(12), 1851–1877. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kytö, M. and Walker, T.
2003 “How ‘bad’ can ‘bad’ data be?” Journal of English Linguistics, 31, 221–248.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Labov, W.
1972 Sociolinguistic Patterns. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
1994 Principles of Linguistic Change. Vol. 1: Internal Factors. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Langbein, J.H.
1978 “The Criminal Trial before the Lawyers.” Chicago Law Review, 45(2), 263–316. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lave, J. and Wenger, E.
1991 Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lyons, J.
1977 Semantics, Vol 1 and 2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Matoesian, G. M.
1993 Reproducing Rape. Domination through Talk in the Courtroom. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
2001 Law and the Language of Identity: Discourse in the William Kennedy Smith Rape Trial. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Meel, B. L.
2003 “The Myth of Child Rape as a Cure for HIV/AIDS in Transkei.” Medicine, Science and the Law, 43(1), 85–88. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Nevalainen, T.
1999 “Making the Best Use of ‘Bad’ Data: Evidence for Sociolinguistic Variation in Early Modern English.” Neuphilologische Mitteilungen, 100(4), 499–533.Google Scholar
Nevalainen, T. and Raumolin-Brunberg, H.
2003 Historical Sociolinguistics. Language Change in Tudor and Stuart England. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
OED Online
. June 2016a Myth, n. Oxford University Press. [URL]; accessed July 04, 2016.
. June 2016b Ideology, n. Oxford University Press. [URL]; accessed July 04, 2016.
Old Bailey Proceedings Online
[URL], version 7.2; June 28, 2016, August 1725, trial of John Pritchard (t17250827–74).
Old Bailey Proceedings Online
[URL], version 7.2, 28 June 2016), September 1733, trial of John Cannon (t17330912–55).
Old Bailey Proceedings Online
[URL], version 7.2, (28 June 2016), July 1715, trial of William Cash (t17150713–54).
Old Bailey Proceedings Online
[URL], version 7.2, 20 July 2016), April 1747, trial of John Hunter (t17470429–28).
Old Bailey Proceedings Online
[URL], version 7.2, 20 July 2016), May 1749, trial of James Penoroy (t17490411–22).
Old Bailey Proceedings Online
([URL], version 7.2, 20 July 2016), September 1796, trial of David Scott (t17960914-12).
Perry, N. W., McAuliff, B. D., Tam, P., Claycomb, L., Dostal, C. and Flanagan, C.
1995 “When Lawyers Question Children: Is Justice Served?” Law and Human Behavior, 19(6), 609–629. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Quirk, R., Greenbaum, S., Leech, G. and Svartvik, J.
1985 A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Reisigl, M. and Wodak, R.
2009 “The Discourse-Historical Approach (DHA).” In Methods of Critical Discourse Analysis, ed. by R. Wodak and M. Meyer, 87–121. 2nd edn. London: Sage.Google Scholar
Robertson, S.
2016 “Age of Consent Laws.” Children and Youth in History, Item #230, [URL]; accessed June 29, 2016.
Scott, M.
2008 WordSmith Tools version 5. Liverpool: Lexical Analysis Software.Google Scholar
2010 “Problems in investigating keyness, or clearing the undergrowth and marking out trails.” In Keyness in Texts, ed. by M. Bondi and M. Scott, 43–58. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Shuy, R.
1995 “How a Judge’s oir Dire can Teach a Jury What to Say.” Discourse and Society, 6(2), 207–222. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Simpson, A. E.
1986 “The ‘Blackmail Myth’ and The Prosecution of Rape and its Attempt in Eighteenth Century London: The Creation of a Legal Tradition.” The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, 77 (1), 101–150. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Smet, H., de Diller, H-J and Tyrkkö, J.
2011 The Corpus of Late Modern English Texts (CLMET), version 3.0. Online: [URL]; accessed July 03, 2016.
Taavitsainen, I. and Fitzmaurice, S.
2007 “Historical Pragmatics: What it is and How to do it.” In Methods in Historical Pragmatics, ed. by S. Fitzmaurice and I. Taavitsainen, 11–36. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Walker, A. G.
1993 “Questioning Young Children in Court: A Linguistic Case Study.” Law and Human Behavior, 17, 59–81. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wenger, E.
1998 Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning and Identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Woodbury, H.
1984 “The Strategic Use of Questions in Court.” Semiotica, 48(3/4), 197–228.Google Scholar