Interacting with Confl icting Goals: Facework and Impoliteness in Hostile Cross-Examination

This chapter uses the corpus-assisted discourse studies approach to analyze the Hutton Inquiry from the theoretical perspective of (im)politeness. As with many instances of institutional discourse, in hostile examination it cannot be assumed that conversational norms apply, nor that participants are involved in cooperative facework, and therefore this chapter aims to contribute to the growing body of work on impoliteness in institutional(ized) situations of confl ict.