Identity, Equity, and Communication in the Criminal Process: Investigating Language and Power in the Contemporary Scottish Courtroom
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Edinburgh
Department Name: College of Arts, Humanities & Social Sci
Abstract
'We tried to illuminate the role that language plays in the law's frequent failure to deliver on its basic promise of equal treatment. The single issue that emerged over and over was the centrality of language in the production, exercise, and subversion of legal power.' (Conley and O'Barr, 1993)
Conley and O'Barr (1993) described as axiom of the court experience that participants leave with a 'sense' of unfairness, a 'feeling' that 'the power of the law is more accessible to some than to others' (p.3) In 2004, Scotland saw the passage of the Vulnerable Witnesses Act which allows procedural adjustments for certain disadvantaged groups. This not only illustrates institutional acknowledgment of the potential for harm as a result of court experiences (Bottoms and Roberts, 2010) but also highlights that Conley and O'Barr's observation continues to be relevant. They identified language as the single most important arena of study in order to understand this phenomenon. However, there is a surprising dearth in Criminology of focus on this main vehicle for the production, reproduction, and potential challenge of power. By paying attention to that which all players in the courtroom use but from different positions of power, we may gain insight into where exactly the persistent sense of unfairness in the courtroom comes from and how we may reduce it.
A rich body of academic work casts the criminal justice system within the U.K. and Scotland as "stealing conflicts" from defendants (e.g. Christie, 1977). This PhD suggests that a more psychologically-aware and contemporary method of conceptualizing this issue is that of "stealing stories." Telling narratives about ourselves in our own way is not only of crucial psychological value, as vast research on narrative identity shows (e.g. Stevens, 2012), but also of rising interest within the field of criminology (e.g. Sandberg and Ugelvik, 2016). This project will therefore explore how stories are linguistically stolen in Scottish courts - or indeed whether enabled or championed - in order to provide an arena for its challenge.
1. How are stories constructed, reconstructed, and deconstructed in the criminal courts?
A. What do professionals do during court proceedings with the narratives as presented by participants?
B. Linguistically, does this constitute "stealing stories" from them?
C. Can empirical approaches to language-in-context, such as conversation analysis and critical discourse analysis, help explore microdiscourse and provide insights on what happens to narratives in courts?
2. How does language encode power in the criminal courts?
A. What strategies of linguistic power play are employed upon narratives and what is their effect on wider power dynamics in the courtroom?
B. What similarities and differences exist in what happens to narratives of witnesses (trial), victims (trial), and defendants (mitigation)?
3. What implications does the phenomenon of "stealing stories" have theoretically and practically?
A. What are the implications for theories of "secondary harm" caused by the criminal justice process?
B. How can underlying linguistic processes contribute to literatures on social identity (i.e. race, gender, class, etc.) and power in criminal courtroom proceedings?
D. What can be done in practice to combat inequity, return stories, and reduce harm in Scottish courts?
Studies of social disadvantage in the criminal process tend to focus on the experiences of individual groups, highlighting difference; my project may develop a theory of similarity under language and thus unify diverse bodies of criminological research. More practically, this research would reveal language as a site where social inequity is expressed and reproduced; it would thus also be the site where it could be challenged. This could be used for a number of awareness-building applications, to start with - for CJS practitioners, policy leaders, and third-sector services supporting witnes
Conley and O'Barr (1993) described as axiom of the court experience that participants leave with a 'sense' of unfairness, a 'feeling' that 'the power of the law is more accessible to some than to others' (p.3) In 2004, Scotland saw the passage of the Vulnerable Witnesses Act which allows procedural adjustments for certain disadvantaged groups. This not only illustrates institutional acknowledgment of the potential for harm as a result of court experiences (Bottoms and Roberts, 2010) but also highlights that Conley and O'Barr's observation continues to be relevant. They identified language as the single most important arena of study in order to understand this phenomenon. However, there is a surprising dearth in Criminology of focus on this main vehicle for the production, reproduction, and potential challenge of power. By paying attention to that which all players in the courtroom use but from different positions of power, we may gain insight into where exactly the persistent sense of unfairness in the courtroom comes from and how we may reduce it.
A rich body of academic work casts the criminal justice system within the U.K. and Scotland as "stealing conflicts" from defendants (e.g. Christie, 1977). This PhD suggests that a more psychologically-aware and contemporary method of conceptualizing this issue is that of "stealing stories." Telling narratives about ourselves in our own way is not only of crucial psychological value, as vast research on narrative identity shows (e.g. Stevens, 2012), but also of rising interest within the field of criminology (e.g. Sandberg and Ugelvik, 2016). This project will therefore explore how stories are linguistically stolen in Scottish courts - or indeed whether enabled or championed - in order to provide an arena for its challenge.
1. How are stories constructed, reconstructed, and deconstructed in the criminal courts?
A. What do professionals do during court proceedings with the narratives as presented by participants?
B. Linguistically, does this constitute "stealing stories" from them?
C. Can empirical approaches to language-in-context, such as conversation analysis and critical discourse analysis, help explore microdiscourse and provide insights on what happens to narratives in courts?
2. How does language encode power in the criminal courts?
A. What strategies of linguistic power play are employed upon narratives and what is their effect on wider power dynamics in the courtroom?
B. What similarities and differences exist in what happens to narratives of witnesses (trial), victims (trial), and defendants (mitigation)?
3. What implications does the phenomenon of "stealing stories" have theoretically and practically?
A. What are the implications for theories of "secondary harm" caused by the criminal justice process?
B. How can underlying linguistic processes contribute to literatures on social identity (i.e. race, gender, class, etc.) and power in criminal courtroom proceedings?
D. What can be done in practice to combat inequity, return stories, and reduce harm in Scottish courts?
Studies of social disadvantage in the criminal process tend to focus on the experiences of individual groups, highlighting difference; my project may develop a theory of similarity under language and thus unify diverse bodies of criminological research. More practically, this research would reveal language as a site where social inequity is expressed and reproduced; it would thus also be the site where it could be challenged. This could be used for a number of awareness-building applications, to start with - for CJS practitioners, policy leaders, and third-sector services supporting witnes
