Courtroom Transcript
In this transcript the barrister holds the
power, which is clear because he speaks in larger sections than Mr Neil. The Barrister has shorter pauses and uses
fewer fillers, suggesting that he feels more confident in their current situation.
Mr Neil takes 2.5 seconds to answer a simple yes
or no question, indicating reluctance to answer, which implicates that he may
be lying. He then speaks simultaneously
to the Barrister when he becomes suspicious of him, which is possibly done in
order to make his answer seem more confident, but could also be a sign of
nervous behaviour.
The Barrister, impatient at the attempted
evasion of his questions, uses emphasis in the sentence: “is that because the
police have been to see you so many times
Mr Neil, that you can’t remember what they were up to see you about one
incident, compared to another incident.”
This is further evidence to suggest that the Barrister is in control of
the situation, because he is using language more articulately and effectively,
to move the interaction in the desired direction. This is in comparison to Mr Neil, who
responds to the question after quietly laughing, which is a classic example of
over-compensation. In this case it could
be that Mr Neil is trying to compensate for his nervousness by trying to appear
casual, by laughing.
Another interesting feature of the text is that
the Barrister uses proper nouns to refer to people, rather than personal
pronouns. This is to be expected as part
of the lexis used in this context, because the Barrister is aiming to
articulate his points with absolute clarity.
Questions are used exclusively by the Barrister, identifying him as the
subject setter. It is important that
clarity is maintained in their situation, because it is imperative that the
receivers of the text, the jury, understand it.
It is almost certain that the Barrister has pre-planned his speech, so
as to make the process more efficient and to avoid mistakes.
MR Neil on the other hand, is far more
spontaneous in his speech, which, along with his apparent nervousness, is the
reason that he uses far more fillers and pauses than the Barrister. As mentioned earlier, he sometime does not
comply with the courtroom convention of turn taking, and rushes to answer some
questions, in order to avoid further examination.
Some very insightful points and there is good implicit knowledge of courtroom conventions - make that much more explicit by referring to what the judge/jury might interpret from the features used. In terms of those features, go into more specifics e.g. the use of the emphasised noun phrase "so many times" has multiple pre-modifiers, especially the use of the intensifier "so" that imply the ridiculousness of Mr Neill's frequent involvement with the police, thus combining with his other techniques (say what these are elsewhere and link explicitly to them here) to undermine Mr Neill's credibility so he can get the man he is defending off as 'not guilty'. This puts the specific techniques in the quotes in context (try and mention as many of the GRAPE specifics as you can).
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