Police Interviews

This collection breaks new ground in police communication research. It involves the first instance of the same dataset being analysed from different theoretical and methodological perspectives as well as providing original and detailed insights into both monolingual and bilingual UK police interviews and US police interrogations of suspects. The topics include the role of metacommunication and its appropriate vs. inappropriate use in evidence elicitation, assessment of mitigation vs. aggravation strategies in questioning, identification of right vs. wrong empathy and the importance of getting it right, effects on complexity in police speak on quantity and quality of information obtained, and the multiple challenges that affect interpreter-mediated exchanges in this highly sensitive communicative context. All levels of linguistic meaning are covered, words, constructions, sentences, discourse, and contextualised within psycholinguistic and sociolinguistic knowledge about inferencing, emotion, and social interaction. This holistic approach helps us explain where, when and why communicative conflicts arise in this sensitive context and propose concrete practical solutions to resolve them. This volume will be useful and relevant to both academics, students and researchers, and to professionals in the domains of language and the law. Originally published as special issue of Pragmatics and Society 10:1 (2019).

Ning Ye, Zhejiang Police College, in Journal of Pragmatics 191 (2022).:
Police-suspect interviews in a unique institutional context and discourse framework is a topic of crucial importance around the world. Adopting both quantitative and qualitative approaches, this volume makes a major contribution to the study on the complexities of communicative situations in police interviews as well as interpreter-assisted police interviews, bridging a research gap between police interviews and pragmatics in legal genres. The volume is also a valuable addition to the field of applied pragmatic analysis of legal genres in the social and cultural context and the study of communication of police interviews in particular. With expertise and actionable knowledge in both research and practice, it will appeal to scholars and practitioners who take an interest in linguistic and pragmatic analysis of legal communication and legal translation, thereby improving professional practice and training.