Cross-examining lawyers, facework and the adversarial courtroom

Archer, Dawn Elizabeth (2011) Cross-examining lawyers, facework and the adversarial courtroom. Journal of Pragmatics, 43 (13). pp. 3216-3230. ISSN 0378-2166

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Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2011.06.007

Abstract

This paper proposes a Goffman-inspired framework for capturing lawyers� facework activities. Goffman's (1967:14) three levels of face threat � intentional, incidental and accidental � differ according to the extent to which the S[peaker] is seen to be engaging in:

1.

�malicious and spiteful� face damage;
2.

activities where face damage may be an �unplanned by-product� of an interchange (which S is nevertheless prepared to undertake);
3.

activities where face damage is completely unintended on S's part, such that S �would have attempted to avoid� such activities had s/he �foreseen� the potentially �offensive consequences�.

Current (linguistic) impoliteness models tend to draw on Goffman's intentional level to explain impoliteness in conflictive text-types which include the courtroom (i.e. 1). This paper argues, in contrast, that a cross-examining lawyer's (facework) strategy will fall somewhere between Goffman's intentional and incidental level, in the main (i.e. 1 and 2). A new zone is thus proposed � that of strategic ambivalence � which is situated (so as to allow for movement) between Goffman's (1967) intentional and incidental levels. The three levels, in turn, become a facework aggravation scale/continuum. Intention, here, is used in a pragmatic � specifically, a discursive � sense as opposed to a philosophical or legal sense.


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