Home Linguistics & Semiotics Chapter 8 I wanna be somebody: Enacted reported thought in an actual jury deliberation
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Chapter 8 I wanna be somebody: Enacted reported thought in an actual jury deliberation

  • Gregory Matoesian
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More than (Just) Words
This chapter is in the book More than (Just) Words

Abstract

This study analyzes how a juror in an actual jury deliberation brings cross-modal or multimodal poetic resources to bear on the enactment of reported thought attributed to a defendant in a criminal case, a dramatic multimodal process designed to persuade other jurors to acquit the defendant. My goal is to show how co-speech gestures, material objects, and other modal resources reveal thinking processes in motion and thus turn putative mental states into visible bodily conduct. Rather than follow orthodox jury research that relies on abstract story or persuasion models and exogenous outcome variables like roles, demographic characteristics, gender, socioeconomic status, race and so on, I analyze deliberation in the wild as it were and demonstrate how a naturalistic approach yields a penetrating understanding of the jury during construction and co-construction of legal context.

Abstract

This study analyzes how a juror in an actual jury deliberation brings cross-modal or multimodal poetic resources to bear on the enactment of reported thought attributed to a defendant in a criminal case, a dramatic multimodal process designed to persuade other jurors to acquit the defendant. My goal is to show how co-speech gestures, material objects, and other modal resources reveal thinking processes in motion and thus turn putative mental states into visible bodily conduct. Rather than follow orthodox jury research that relies on abstract story or persuasion models and exogenous outcome variables like roles, demographic characteristics, gender, socioeconomic status, race and so on, I analyze deliberation in the wild as it were and demonstrate how a naturalistic approach yields a penetrating understanding of the jury during construction and co-construction of legal context.

Chapters in this book

  1. Frontmatter I
  2. Acknowledgments VII
  3. Contents IX
  4. Foreword XIII
  5. Introduction: More than (just) words 1
  6. Part I: (Just) words
  7. Legal perspectives
  8. Chapter 1 Metalanguage in the penalty phase of a capital trial: A study of two monologic genres 27
  9. Chapter 2 Political discrimination or reasonable conduct? Motive-implicative discourse moves in a civil trial’s closing arguments 49
  10. Chapter 3 Legal-lay interaction and recontextualization in Swedish criminal proceedings 73
  11. Non-legal perspectives
  12. Chapter 4 . . .and I’m telling you honestly, I don’t measure: Emotive reframing and evasiveness in expert testimony 99
  13. Chapter 5 Navigating the linguistic complexity of cross-examination: The role of the witness intermediary for an autistic defendant 127
  14. Chapter 6 Between semantics and pragmatics: Witnesses’ credibility and the linguistic expression of the source of information in Italian criminal trials 149
  15. Chapter 7 Identity construction in complainants’ narratives in the investigative public hearings on the Nigerian Federal Capital Territory administration 185
  16. Part II: More than (just) words
  17. Speech and gesture
  18. Chapter 8 I wanna be somebody: Enacted reported thought in an actual jury deliberation 213
  19. Chapter 9 Multimodal discursive authority of the judge: Analyzing the judge’s interactions with courtroom participants in Chinese criminal trials 231
  20. Image and architecture
  21. Chapter 10 Allegories of justice in contemporary France: In search of a new paradigm 267
  22. Chapter 11 Criminal law, court architecture, and the space of justice: Stakeholder perceptions of ‘special’ courts used in child sexual abuse trials in India 293
  23. Index 319
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111431789-009

Chapters in this book

  1. Frontmatter I
  2. Acknowledgments VII
  3. Contents IX
  4. Foreword XIII
  5. Introduction: More than (just) words 1
  6. Part I: (Just) words
  7. Legal perspectives
  8. Chapter 1 Metalanguage in the penalty phase of a capital trial: A study of two monologic genres 27
  9. Chapter 2 Political discrimination or reasonable conduct? Motive-implicative discourse moves in a civil trial’s closing arguments 49
  10. Chapter 3 Legal-lay interaction and recontextualization in Swedish criminal proceedings 73
  11. Non-legal perspectives
  12. Chapter 4 . . .and I’m telling you honestly, I don’t measure: Emotive reframing and evasiveness in expert testimony 99
  13. Chapter 5 Navigating the linguistic complexity of cross-examination: The role of the witness intermediary for an autistic defendant 127
  14. Chapter 6 Between semantics and pragmatics: Witnesses’ credibility and the linguistic expression of the source of information in Italian criminal trials 149
  15. Chapter 7 Identity construction in complainants’ narratives in the investigative public hearings on the Nigerian Federal Capital Territory administration 185
  16. Part II: More than (just) words
  17. Speech and gesture
  18. Chapter 8 I wanna be somebody: Enacted reported thought in an actual jury deliberation 213
  19. Chapter 9 Multimodal discursive authority of the judge: Analyzing the judge’s interactions with courtroom participants in Chinese criminal trials 231
  20. Image and architecture
  21. Chapter 10 Allegories of justice in contemporary France: In search of a new paradigm 267
  22. Chapter 11 Criminal law, court architecture, and the space of justice: Stakeholder perceptions of ‘special’ courts used in child sexual abuse trials in India 293
  23. Index 319
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