Publications
Publication details [#67376]
Nakane, Ikuko. 2018. “I really don’t know because I’m stupid”: Unpacking suggestibility in investigative interviews . In Kryk-Kastovsky, Barbara and Dennis Kurzon, eds. Legal Pragmatics. (Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 288). John Benjamins. pp. 203–227.
Publication type
Article in book
Publication language
English
Keywords
Language as a subject
Annotation
This chapter examines how an interviewee with borderline intellectual functioning
reversed his denial and gave a false confession in investigative interviews
conducted by a prosecutor in a murder case in Japan. While the interviewing
prosecutor’s varying approaches to questioning are likely to have contributed
to the interviewee’s changing statements, the analysis also suggests that the
interviewer either ignored or was unaware of the subtle cues of problematic
communication, especially the ways in which the interviewee used the phrases
wakaranai (I don’t know) and gomennasai (I am sorry), as well as his long
silences. It is argued that such miscommunication often arose because of the
interlocutors’ mismatch of knowledge schemata. The analysis demonstrates that
tension and lack of interactional alignment are likely to have triggered shifts
in interactional frames, which gradually led the suspect with a high level of
susceptibility to pressure from law enforcement officers to making a false confession.
The study suggests that discourse-pragmatic approaches to investigative
interviews of vulnerable interviewees can contribute to a better understanding
of miscommunication and false confessions, and improvement in interviewing
practice. It also brings an insight into the role of the power dynamics operating
in the specific context of criminal investigation in Japan.