ABSTRACT
The fi rst epigraph illustrates the importance of talk in encounters with the emergency services, which can be the fi rst stage in evidence gathering in criminal cases. Calls to the emergency services involve a conversation between a telephone operator and a member of the public. This encounter typifi es the intersection between lay and institutional interaction and the sometimes confl icting goals of each party. The caller is seeking a rapid response from the emergency services, while the call-taker needs to make a decision about whether the incident deserves an immediate response. This call is often simply the fi rst in a series of encounters with institutional decision-making. During interviews with suspects, as in the second epigraph, police offi cers have to make decisions about whether the reported actions and events constitute a legally defi ned offence. Then in court the role of evaluator falls to a magistrate or a jury, who have to decide whether a case has
been proved ‘beyond reasonable doubt’ if it is a criminal charge or ‘on the balance of probabilities’ if it is a civil case. Thus once things get to court lay participants are fi rmly in control in the sense that the talk is performed for them, though in the recipient role, as what they receive is channelled through the legal experts.
