Tag Questions in American and Romanian Witness Examinations

Transcription

1 Buletinul Ştiinţific al Universităţii Politehnica din Timişoara Seria Limbi Moderne Vol. 9, No.1-2 / 2010 Scientific Bulletin of the Politehnica University of Timişoara Transactions on Modern Languages Tag Questions in American and Romanian Witness Examinations Marcela FĂRCAŞIU Abstract: The paper sets out to present tag questions comparatively, i.e. in American and Romanian witness examinations, from a syntactic and a functional point of view. Tag questions are known to be the most conducive of all types of questions, i.e. they suggest the answer, this feature making them very useful tools in the hands of the lawyers (in American courtrooms) and judges (in Romanian courtrooms). Keywords: courtroom, witness examination, tag questions, coerciveness 1. Introduction The language used in the courtroom has long been considered an important field of study; research of institutional interaction has provided a lot of information about the language that legal and lay participants use in the courtroom and about the linguistic constraints imposed by the legal system. The speech event known as witness examination, occurring in the courtroom, is very different in the two systems of justice, the adversarial (American) and the inquisitorial (Romanian) Assistant Lecturer, Department of Communication and Foreign Languages, Politehnica University of Timişoara, Romania. 14

2 ones, being a string of question-answer adjacency pairs, which are interlaced into larger patterns. The data presented here are part of my doctoral thesis research and are based on 100 pages of transcripts of three famous criminal trials in the U.S.A. (the O.J. Simpson trial, the Oklahoma City bombing trial and the Zacarias Moussaoui trial), found on a website, and 100 pages of transcripts of Romanian criminal trials that took place at the Timisoara Courthouse and that I personally attended, recorded, and then transcribed. As questioning in the courtroom is predominantly characterized by question answer sequences in which the professionals largely ask questions and the lay clients respond with answers (Drew and Heritage 1992: 54), this paper sets out to analyse the tag questions found in the stage of witness examination in both corpora, trying to establish the main similarities and differences between them, from a syntactic and a functional point of view. 2. Tag questions in the American witness examination The process of witness examination in an American trial involves two stages of questioning: direct examination and cross-examination. The direct examination is the questioning of a witness by the party who called him/her to the stand and is more supportive to the witness. As a rule, leading questions, i.e. questions in a form suggesting the answer to the witness, are not permitted during direct examination, because the witnesses called by a party are presumed to give testimony favourable to that party, and, therefore, leading questions are not necessary. 15

3 The cross-examination is the interrogation of a witness called by one's opponent. It follows the direct examination and its purpose is to employ more aggressive tactics in order to discredit and challenge the witness's account of events. Since a witness called by the opposing party is presumed to be hostile, leading questions are permitted in cross-examination. In direct examination, lawyers do not interrupt the witnesses, are more permissive and do not use leading questions, while during cross-examination, lawyers try to intimidate and discredit the witnesses with the help of leading questions. Tag questions can only occur in cross-examinations and are the most coercive question types in the American witness examination, suggesting the answer, as Woodbury (1984: 205, apud Archer 2005: 78) shows in his continuum of control : Amount of control Least Most Type of question Broad wh- Narrow wh- Alternative Grammatical yes/no Prosodic Tag 2.1. Tag questions in Cross-Examination From a syntactic point of view, tag questions are made up of a statement, in the form of a declarative sentence and a question, represented by the tag and attached to the statement, e.g. We ve met before, haven t we?, You didn t know about it, did you? 16

4 As far as the form of the tag is concerned, we can distinguish between copy tags and checking tags (Quirk et al. 1985: ). Copy tags retain the positive or negative polarity of the verb in the declarative sentence (e.g., You were there, were you?, You weren t there, weren t you?). Checking tags, on the other hand, show the reversed polarity to the verb in the declarative sentence, i.e. if the verb is in the positive, the tag is in the negative and vice-versa (e.g., You saw him, didn t you?, You didn t see him, did you?). Woodbury (1984: 203, apud Ilie 1994: 182) introduced a new category that he called confirmatory tag questions, where the tag is invariable (e.g. correct?, right?, true?, etc.). The form and function of the tag indicate that the questioner expects an answer in a specific form. From a functional point of view, tags are requests for confirmation; Philips (1987: 84) considers that they presuppose the answer, as well as limiting it to yes and no and that they are controlling and coercive. The tag is seen as the turn-taking signal (TRP transition relevance point) by the witness, who can then respond to the question asked. In my corpus, the checking and the confirmatory tags were used more widely than the copy tags, with a clear preference for the confirmatory tags by the lawyers. Copy tags same polarity tags (1) (O. J. Simpson case Testimony of Mike Norris, Witness for the defence) PC: You didn't speak to him on those occasions? W: No. PC: And you saw him, he was driving in his car, was he? W: Yeah. 17

5 (2) (O. J. Simpson case Testimony of Denise Pilnak, Witness for the defence) PC: Miss Pilnak, you're a stickler for time, are you? W: Yes, I am. Checking tags reversed polarity tags (3) (Moussaoui Trial Clarence E. Prevost, Witness for the prosecution) DC: You don't have any training in law enforcement, do you? W: Zero. (4) (Oklahoma City Bombing trial Testimony of Daina Bradley, Witness for the defence) PC: You never said he was short and stocky, did you? W: No, I didn't. PC: You've never said that at any time, have you? W: No, I haven't. PC: Now, later when you were interviewed, you changed from tanskinned to olive- skinned. W: Yes, I did. PC: Now, you had a really rough childhood, haven't you? W: Yes, I have. Confirmatory tags agreement tags (5) (O. J. Simpson case Testimony of Ron Shipp, Witness for the prosecution) DC: But you've lied a few times concerning what you know about Mr. Simpson, true? W: Yeah, I d say. DC: So let me get this straight. You met for 90 minutes with Phil and Marcia and Bill and never mentioned this conversation, correct? 18

6 W: Never did. DC: You met for 25 minutes with Joe Brown and never discussed this conversation, correct? W: Did not. DC: You met with me in your attorney's office for 45 minutes and never talked about this conversation, correct? W: Correct. DC: And you are Mr. Simpson s friend as far as you think, correct? W: Yes. (6) (Moussaoui Trial Clarence E. Prevost, Witness for the prosecution) DC: Mr. Prevost, Mr. Moussaoui never finished his training; isn't that so? W: That's correct. DC: He was arrested on the second day, correct? W: Not on the second day. After the second day, he was arrested, and before his simulator training. DC: He never actually operated a simulator; isn't that so? W: Yes, that's correct. 3. Tag questions in the Romanian witness examination The questioning in the Romanian trial differs greatly from that in the American trial. First of all, there is no direct or cross-examination and therefore, there is no coercion of the type exercised in the American cross-examination. The judge is the only questioner and asks the questions with the purpose of confronting the depositions and exhibits s/he already has in the file with the witnesses accounts, so that after corroborating them, the court could present its decision: guilty or not guilty. The case is mostly known from the file that the judge has studied before the examination, so the questions s/he asks are requests for 19

7 confirmation of the facts already known and requests for information in order to fill the information gaps that might exist. Tag questions in Romanian follow a yes/no question or a wh-question and a statement that is conducive towards a negative answer ( nu?, nu-i aşa? ) or towards a positive answer ( da?, aşa e? ). My corpus showed only the conduciveness towards a positive answer, as the judge was trying to get confirmation of the facts s/he knew were known to the witness. (7) (Case 3) J: Ştiţi că a suferit o condamnare, da? W: Da. [ J: You know that he was convicted, right? W: Right.] (8) (Case 4) J: L-aţi văzut pe inculpat, da? W: Da, da. [ J: You saw the defendant, right? W: Right, right.] (9) (Case 7) J: Unde s-a petrecut infracţiunea? Pe stradă, da? W: Da. [ J: Where did the felony take place? On the street, right? W: Right.] 20

8 (10) (Case 8) J: Să consemnăm că autotractorul era o dubiţă, da? W: Da. 3 tone jumate, cât avea, o dubiţă. [ J: Let us note that the truck was in fact a small van, right? W: Right. 3 tons and a half, a small van.] (11) (Case 9 Witness 3) J: Dumneavoastră aţi fost în vizită la domnul primar, da? În seara respectivă?= W: =Da. [ J: You were at the mayor s house, right? That evening? = W: =Right.] 4. Conclusion Witness examination is a topic of research that provides a lot of interesting data, which can be analysed from different perspectives. My paper has presented a comparative analysis of tag questions, which are a means for asking closed questions, being conducive towards an answer. They are a valuable resource for lawyers and judges in the courtrooms, through which they express their authoritative power and constrain the witness to choose the answer they want. This feature of conduciveness of tag questions is more present in the American courtroom, in cross-examinations, where the lawyers intimidate the witness and make him/her say what they want, while in the Romanian courtroom, it is a means through which the judge is only trying to make sure the information s/he already has is correct, requesting the witness s confirmation of his/her deposition. 21

9 Transcription conventions: PC - Prosecuting Counsel DC - Defence Counsel J - Judge W- Witness A passage of talk noticeably softer than surrounding utterances. = Latching between two turns or words within a turn (contiguous stretches of talk) References 1. Archer, D., Questions and Answers in the English Courtroom: A Sociopragmatic Analysis. Amsterdam: John Benjamins B.V., Avram, M., Gramatica pentru toţi. Bucureşti: Ed. Academiei, Drew, P., Heritage, J., Analyzing Talk at Work: An Introduction, in Drew, P., Heritage, J. (eds.), Talk at Work: Interaction in Institutional Settings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992, pp Ilie, C., What Else Can I Tell You? A Pragmatic Study of English Rhetorical Questions as Discursive and Argumentative Acts. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International, Philips, S.U., The Social Organisation of Questions and Answers in Courtroom Discourse, in Kedar, L. (ed), Power through Discourse. New Jersey: Ablex Publishing Corporation, 1987, pp Quirk, R., Greenbaum, S., Leech, G., Svartvik, J., A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language. London: Longman, Woodbury, H., The Strategic Use of Questions in Court in Semiotica 48, 1984, pp Trial transcripts 22