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Chapter
Witnesses and suspects in interviews
DOI link for Witnesses and suspects in interviews
Witnesses and suspects in interviews book
Witnesses and suspects in interviews
DOI link for Witnesses and suspects in interviews
Witnesses and suspects in interviews book
ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the language of police interviews with both suspects and witnesses through close consideration of a range of literature. It begins by considering the status of oral evidence which is gathered from suspects and witnesses. This necessitates examining first the significance which attaches to talk and its distribution in suspect interviews as a result of police cautions and Miranda warnings before secondly examining the ways in which witnesses’ spoken words assume a very different place because of the processes through which their statements are taken. The idea that aspects of interview process and context can influence interview outcomes is introduced. After exploring the notion of investigative interviewing, it focuses on elements which can be seen as crucial to the linguistic description and critique of police interviewing processes and context, including police training and interviewing methods, the relationship between question form and function, topic control and turn management, processes of accounting and narrativisation, processes of transformation and recontextualisation. The exploration of these ideas and concepts is driven by a focus on the key question of how process and context can influence interview outcomes. The chapter concludes by readdressing that question in the light of research presented.