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Chapter 1. Pleading for life

Narrative patterns within legal petitions (Salem, 1692)
  • Kathleen L. Doty
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Legal Pragmatics
This chapter is in the book Legal Pragmatics

Abstract

While the past decade has seen much scholarship on the legal language of the Salem witchcraft trials in 1692, few studies have been completed on the narrative features of petitions. This study focuses not solely on the formulaic or structural aspects of petitions but introduces and explores various social narratives within them. These social narratives emphasize the petitioner’s family life, religious beliefs and activities, and status in the community. The data consist of 21 petitions presented in 1692 during the height of the crisis (March to December), including both petitions written by individuals accused of witchcraft and those written by other individuals. The three main components – religious, familial, community – of social narratives are analyzed. The study concludes that the intersection between formulaic petitionary language and social narratives that evoke both family and religion dominate in the petitions of 1692. Petitions are used to reframe the accused as participants in a larger social narrative rather than as witches or wizards.

Abstract

While the past decade has seen much scholarship on the legal language of the Salem witchcraft trials in 1692, few studies have been completed on the narrative features of petitions. This study focuses not solely on the formulaic or structural aspects of petitions but introduces and explores various social narratives within them. These social narratives emphasize the petitioner’s family life, religious beliefs and activities, and status in the community. The data consist of 21 petitions presented in 1692 during the height of the crisis (March to December), including both petitions written by individuals accused of witchcraft and those written by other individuals. The three main components – religious, familial, community – of social narratives are analyzed. The study concludes that the intersection between formulaic petitionary language and social narratives that evoke both family and religion dominate in the petitions of 1692. Petitions are used to reframe the accused as participants in a larger social narrative rather than as witches or wizards.

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents vii
  3. Introduction 1
  4. Part 1. Historical pragmatics
  5. Chapter 1. Pleading for life 21
  6. Chapter 2. “How came you not to cry out?” 41
  7. Chapter 3. Implicatures in Early Modern English courtroom records 65
  8. Chapter 4. Literal interpretation and political expediency 81
  9. Part 2. Pragmatics of legal writing and documents
  10. Chapter 5. Making legal language clear to legal laypersons 101
  11. Chapter 6. Interpreting or in legal texts 117
  12. Part 3. Discourse in the courtroom and in police investigation
  13. Chapter 7. The nature of power and control in the interrogative patterns of selected Nigerian courtroom discourse 133
  14. Chapter 8. The language of Egyptian interrogations 157
  15. Chapter 9. Achieving influence through negotiation 181
  16. Chapter 10. “I really don’t know because I’m stupid” 203
  17. Part 4. Legal discourse and multilingualism
  18. Chapter 11. On the balance between invariance and context-dependence 231
  19. Chapter 12. Contextuality of interpretation in non-monolingual jurisdictions 257
  20. Legal pragmatics - subject index proposal 277
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.288.01dot

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents vii
  3. Introduction 1
  4. Part 1. Historical pragmatics
  5. Chapter 1. Pleading for life 21
  6. Chapter 2. “How came you not to cry out?” 41
  7. Chapter 3. Implicatures in Early Modern English courtroom records 65
  8. Chapter 4. Literal interpretation and political expediency 81
  9. Part 2. Pragmatics of legal writing and documents
  10. Chapter 5. Making legal language clear to legal laypersons 101
  11. Chapter 6. Interpreting or in legal texts 117
  12. Part 3. Discourse in the courtroom and in police investigation
  13. Chapter 7. The nature of power and control in the interrogative patterns of selected Nigerian courtroom discourse 133
  14. Chapter 8. The language of Egyptian interrogations 157
  15. Chapter 9. Achieving influence through negotiation 181
  16. Chapter 10. “I really don’t know because I’m stupid” 203
  17. Part 4. Legal discourse and multilingualism
  18. Chapter 11. On the balance between invariance and context-dependence 231
  19. Chapter 12. Contextuality of interpretation in non-monolingual jurisdictions 257
  20. Legal pragmatics - subject index proposal 277
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