Persuasion, hedging and politeness in discourse construction in courtroom

The present research studies linguistic behavior of trial participants and discursive patterns used by them to control representations of reality they create for the jurors in cross-examination. The process of reality construction may be either intentional or unintentional by nature. A feature of institutional discourse is the intentional nature of changing perceptions of reality. Most often, this is due to the presence of conflicting interests at the cross-examination stage. For the jury, the version of the event presented by lawyers is the only source of information their verdict will draw on. The result is that lawyers intentionally create new mental constructs that are, to a greater or lesser extent, a reflection of real events. The object of the study is persuasive, hedging and politeness means used by trial participants to create new reality in cross-examination. Close research into the source materials – Holocaust Denial – Royal Courts of Justice, Strand, London, 2000 – allows the author to conclude that cross-examination discourse is a social construct dependent on the information and means of interpretation that are part of a person’s social system. Courtroom discourse is linguistically marked, close attention is given to the choice of linguistic means at all levels of linguistic expression.