The Suspect's Statement

Talk and Text in the Criminal Process

Martha Komter

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN:
  9781107059481
• eBook ISBN:
  9781108605731
• Topic: Sprachen & Linguistik
• Subtopic: Sprachwissenschaft

What suspects tell the police may become a crucial piece of evidence when the case comes to court. But what happens to 'the suspect's statement' when it is written down by the police? Based on a unique set of data from over fifteen years' worth of research, Martha Komter examines the trajectory of the suspect's statement from the police interrogation through to the trial. She shows how the suspect's statement is elicited and written down in the police report, how this police report both represents and differs from the original talk in the interrogation, and how it is quoted and referred to in court. The analyses cover interactions in multiple settings, with documents that link one interaction to the next, providing insights into the interactional and documentary foundations of the criminal process and, more generally, into the construction, character and uses of documents in institutional settings.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-title
• Series information
• Title page
• Copyright information
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Transcription Conventions
• 1 Introduction
• 2 The Police Interrogation: The Talk, the Typing and the Text
• 3 The Police Report: The Document, the Text and the Talk
• 4 The Trial: Documents in Action
• 5 The Career of a Suspect's Statement
• 6 Conclusion and Discussion
• Appendix A
• References
• Author Index
• Subject Index