Cover not available
Article published In:
Pragmatics
Vol. 18:2 (2008) ► pp.169–188

Metapragmatics in a courtroom genre

Taking as a starting point a broad conception of metapragmatics (Lucy 1993), this study describes a wide range of reflexive elements in closing arguments of criminal trials, and on the basis of their habitual use by trial lawyers, it enquires about the general underlying function as part of the sociocultural practice (Bourdieu 1990). The corpus of was collected at twenty-two criminal trials observed and recorded by the researcher. Five kinds of metapragmatic indexes – from the maximally explicit to the implicit – are identified and analyzed in their interactional, situational and societal context: (1) performatives, which count as official acts by the trial lawyer, (2) formulations and other evaluations of speech, (3) descriptions of aspects of the sociocultural practice and allusions to the principles governing the event, (4) strategic descriptions of contextual conditions, which are exploited with group identity and relational effects, and (5) style. The analysis reveals that these metapragmatic features contextualize the communication as expressing a specific social capital, and at the same time, they contribute to define what does not count as legitimate practice. Apart from the specific effects of individual types of indexes, in closing arguments metapragmatic indexes basically function signaling that the social actor and the practice they are engaged in rightfully belong to the social field of the law.

Keywords: Social field, Metapragmatics, Law, Social practice, Closing arguments, Courtroom discourse
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC) 4.0 license.
Published online: 1 June 2008
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/prag.18.2.01car
References
Amsterdam, A., and R. Hertz
(1992) An analysis of closing arguments to a jury. New York Law School Law Review 371: 55-122.Google Scholar
Austin, J
(1962) How to do things with words. Oxford: Clarendon.  BoPGoogle Scholar
Bateson, G
(1972 [1955]) A theory of play and fantasy. In Steps to an ecology of mind. New York: Ballantine, pp. 177-193.Google Scholar
Bauman, R
(2001) The ethnography of genre in a Mexican market: Form, function, variation. In P. Eckert & J. Rickford (eds.), Style and sociolinguistic variation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 57-77.  BoPGoogle Scholar
Bauman, R., and C. Briggs
(1990) Poetics and performance as critical perspectives on language and social life. Annual Review of Anthropology 191: 59-88. DOI logo  BoPGoogle Scholar
Bell, A
(1984) Language style as audience design. Language in society 13.2: 145-204. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2001) Back in style: Reworking audience design. In P. Eckert & J. Rickford (eds.), Style and sociolinguistic variation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: pp. 139-169.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, P
(1977) Outline of a theory of practice. Tr. Richard Nice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(1990) In other words: Essays toward a reflexive sociology. Tr. Matthew Adamson. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
(1998) Rethinking the State: Genesis and Structure of the Bureaucratic Field. Practical reason. On the theory of action. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, pp. 35-63. [orig. 1991, Sociological theory 12 (1)].Google Scholar
Cameron, D
(2004) Out of the bottle: The social life of metalanguage. In A. Jaworski, N. Coupland & D. Galasinski (eds.), Metalanguage. Social and ideological perspectives. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter, pp. 311-321. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Carranza, I.E., M.L. Rosenbaun, & C. Barreras
(2001) Intertextualidad en la incorporación de declaraciones por su lectura. In C. Lista, M. I Bergoglio & M. Díaz de Landa (eds.), Cambio social y derecho: Debates y propuestas sociológicas en los inicios del siglo XXI.Córdoba: Editorial Triunfar, pp. 579-585.Google Scholar
Carranza, I.E
(2003) Genre and Institution: Narrative temporality in final arguments. Narrative inquiry 13.1: 41-69. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2004) Discourse markers in the construction of the text, the activity, and the social relations: Evidence from courtroom discourse. In R. Márquez & M. E. Placencia (eds.), Current Trends in the Pragmatics of Spanish. Amsterdam/New York: John Benjamins Publishing Company, pp. 203-227. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2006) Face, social practices, and ideologies in the courtroom. In M.E. Placencia & C. García (eds.), Research on politeness in the Spanish-speaking world. Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum, pp. 163-187.Google Scholar
(2007) La ideología del texto verdadero. Páginas de Guarda . Buenos Aires: Universidad Nacional de Buenos Aires 21: 33-46.Google Scholar
Chouliaraki, L., and N. Fairclough
(1999) Discourse in late modernity. Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh Press.  BoPGoogle Scholar
Conley, J.M., and W.O’Barr
(1990) Rules and relationships. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Conley, J.M., and O’Barr
(1998) Just Words. Law, language and power. Chicago/London: The University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Cotterill, J
(1998) “If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit”: Metaphor and the O J Simpson criminal trial. Forensic linguistics 5.2: 141-158.Google Scholar
(2003) Language and power in court: A linguistic analysis of the O.J. Simpson Trial. Houndmills: Palgrave.  BoP DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2004) Collocation, connotation, and courtroom semantics: Lawyers’ control of witness testimony through lexical negotiation. Applied linguistics 25.4: 513-537. DOI logo  BoPGoogle Scholar
Danet, B
(1997) Speech, writing and performativity: An evolutionary view of the history of constitutive ritual. In B.-L. Gunnarson, P. Linell, & B. Nordberg, (eds.), The construction of professional discourse. London/New York: Longman, pp. 13-41.  BoPGoogle Scholar
Duranti, A
(1996) Linguistic anthropology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Eades, D
(2006) Lexical struggle in court: Aboriginal Australians versus the state. Journal of Sociolinguistics 10.2: 153-180. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gal, S., and K. Woolard
(1995) Constructing languages and publics: Authority and representation. Pragmatics 5.2: 129-138.  BoP DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hanks, W
(1996) Language and communicative practices. Boulder, CO: Westview.  BoPGoogle Scholar
Hobbs, P
(2003) Is that what we’re here about? A lawyer’s use of impression management in a closing argument at trial. Discourse & Society 14.3: 273-290.Google Scholar
Jacobson, R
(1960) Closing statement: Linguistics and poetics. In T.A. Sebeok (ed.), Style in language. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, pp. 350-377.Google Scholar
Jacquemet, M
(1996) Credibility in court. Communicative practices in the Camorra trials. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Jaworski, A., N. Coupland & D. Galasinski
(eds.) (2004) Metalanguage. Social and ideological perspectives. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logo  BoPGoogle Scholar
Lucy, J.A
(1993) Reflexive language and the human disciplines. In J.A. Lucy (ed.), Reflexive Language. Reported speech and metapragmatics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 9-32. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Matoesian, G
(1993) Reproducing Rape Domination through Talk in the Courtroom. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.  BoPGoogle Scholar
(2001) Law and the Language of Identity: Discourse in the William Kennedy Smith Rape Trial. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.  BoPGoogle Scholar
Mertz, E
(1994) Legal language: Pragmatics, poetics, and social power. Annual Review of Anthropology. 231: 435-455. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(1998) Linguistic ideology and praxis in US law school classroom. In B. Shiefflin, K. Woolard, & P.V. Kroskrity (eds.), Language ideologies. New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 140-162.Google Scholar
Preston, D.R
(2004) Folk metalanguage. In A. Jaworsky, N. Coupland and D. Galasinski (eds.), Metalanguage. Social and ideological perspectives, pp. 75-101. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Silverstein, M
(1993) Metapragmatic discourse and metapragmatic function. In Reflexive languag, indirect discourse and metapragmatics. In J.A. Lucy (ed.), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 33-58. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Stygall, G
(1994) Trial language. Differential discourse processing and discursive formation. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company. DOI logo  BoPGoogle Scholar
Tiersma, P
(1999) Legal language. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Google Scholar
Verschueren, J
(1999) Understanding pragmatics. London: Arnold.  BoPGoogle Scholar
(2000) Notes on the role of metapragmatic awareness in language use. Pragmatics 10.4: 439-456.  BoP DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 4 other publications

Aina, Oluwasola A., Anthony Elisha Anowu & Tunde Olusola Opeibi
2018. Chapter 7. The nature of power and control in the interrogative patterns of selected Nigerian courtroom discourse. In Legal Pragmatics [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 288], ► pp. 133 ff. DOI logo
Bonnin, Juan Eduardo
2013. New Dimensions of Linguistic Inequality: An Overview. Language and Linguistics Compass 7:9 ► pp. 500 ff. DOI logo
Szczyrbak, Magdalena
2023. Closing Argument as Multimodal Oratory: Insights from the Chauvin Trial. International Journal for the Semiotics of Law - Revue internationale de Sémiotique juridique DOI logo
Unuabonah, Foluke Olayinka
2022. “Are you saying …?”. Pragmatics. Quarterly Publication of the International Pragmatics Association (IPrA) ► pp. 115 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 27 may 2023. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.