Legal talk : Socio-pragmatic aspects of legal questioning: police interviews, prosecutorial discourse and trial discourse

Questions and questioning are fundamental to legal talk. This chapter examines question form and function, specifically focusing on the pragmatic work that questions do in legal talk in four important interactional contexts and activities: police and prosecutorial interviews and examination and cross-examination in criminal trials. Examples are taken from UK, US, Egyptian, Malaysian and Italian data. Pragmatic effects are discussed in the following kinds of questions: and- and so-prefaced questions, formulations, SAY questions, repeats of prior testimony and the use of reported speech. Actions of challenging, evaluating, contrasting, formulating and reporting are discussed. This chapter shows how the legal consequences of questioning are significant for both the institutional and the lay speaker across these different legal activities and contexts.