The Language of Confession, Interrogation, and Deception

Roger W. Shuy

• Publisher: SAGE Publications, Inc
• Year: 1997
• Print ISBN: 9780761913467, 9780761913450
• eBook ISBN: 9781506319698
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Criminology
• Index: Social Sciences

Using a linguistic point of view, The Language of Confession, Interrogation, and Deception is a practical explanation of how confessions work, written by the "father of forensic linguistics", Roger W. Shuy. Using his 1993 benchmark work, Language Crimes as his model, Shuy examines criminal confessions, the interrogations that elicit them, and the deceptive language that plays a role in the confession event. He presents transcripts from numerous interrogations and analyzes how language is used, how constitutional rights are not protected, consistency and truthfulness, suggestibility, written confessions, as well as unvalidated confessions. He concludes the volume with explicit advice on how to conduct interrogations that will yield credible evidence.

A landmark volume with cross-disciplinary applications, The Language of Confession, Interrogation, and Deception is useful for professionals and academics in linguistics, forensic linguistics, criminal justice, communication, and interpersonal violence.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Series
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Series Editor’s Introduction
• Dedication
• 1 Confession Event
• 2 Language of the Police Interrogation
• 3 Language and Constitutional Rights
• 4 Language of Truthfulness and Deception
• 5 Language of Written Confessions
• 6 Language of the Implicational Confession
• 7 Language of the Interrogator as Therapist
• 8 Inferred Confession
• 9 Unvalidated Confession
• 10 An Effective Interrogation and a Valid Confession
• 11 Some Basic Principles of Interrogation, Confession, and Deceptive Language
• References
• Index
• About the Author