ABSTRACT

This chapter introduces and discusses the main features of courtroom persuasion. Pragmatic techniques adopted in courtroom advocacy include strategic use of interruption, repetition, overlapping speech; and dramatic silence. In a courtroom context, one way of appearing likeable is to accommodate linguistically to jurors, since psychological research suggests that people like people who resemble them. Lawyers may also build credibility by emphasising information that fits into the audience's belief system before gradually introducing arguments that they may find difficult to accept if presented in isolation. Audience awareness and the related principle of recipient design are as a result central to advocacy. The relationship between speech style and credibility has been studied by researchers such as B. Erickson, who found that testimonies containing frequent use of powerless speech attributes such as intensifiers, hedges, hesitation forms, questioning intonations, polite forms and hyper-formality are perceived as less credible.