(De)constructing “verbatimness”: a study of speech reporting strategies in the late modern Flemish courtroom
-
Magda Serwadczak
Abstract
Speech reporting and reported speech are omnipresent in courtroom discourse and often regarded as crucial for presenting evidence during trial. Contemporary courtroom procedures emphasize the importance of accurately preserving previous speech, ideally aiming for a verbatim (word-for-word) record. However, the process of reporting speech rarely involves literal, unbiased replication of past utterances, making actual “verbatimness” largely unachievable. While the “verbatimness standard”, feasible or not, is commonplace in today’s courtrooms, its historical development and applicability in the past remain relatively unexplored. Using a combination of corpus-driven, statistical approaches and qualitative discourse analytic methods, the present study examines how speech is reported in late modern Flemish courtroom records, how the use of speech reporting strategies changes across time and how these strategies are set against the background of legal procedures and genre conventions. Additionally, the analysis explores different pragmatic and discursive functions of speech reporting to determine if (and how) they contribute to the construction of “verbatimness”. The study is further complemented by an examination of contemporaneous instruction manuals and training materials for scribes to gain a better understanding of conventions and regulations governing the process of drafting documentation in 19th-century Flemish courtroom.
References
Angermeyer, Philipp. 2021. Beyond translation equivalence: Advocating pragmatic equality before the law. Journal of Pragmatics 174(3). 157–167. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2020.12.022.Search in Google Scholar
Banfield, Ann. 1982. Unspeakable sentences. In Narration and representation in the language of fiction. Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul.Search in Google Scholar
Clark, Herbert & Richard Gerring. 1990. Quotations as demonstrations. Language 66(4). 764–805. https://doi.org/10.2307/414729.Search in Google Scholar
Collins, Daniel. 2001. Reanimated voices. Speech reporting in a historical-pragmatic perspective. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company.10.1075/pbns.85Search in Google Scholar
Coulmas, Florian. 1985. Nobody dies in Shangri-La: Direct and indirect speech across languages. In Deborah Tannen & James Alatis (eds.), Languages and linguistics: The interdependence of theory, data, and application, 140–153. Washington: Georgetown University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Coulthard, Malcolm. 2002. Whose voice is it? Invented and concealed dialogue in written records of verbal evidence produced by the police. In Janet Cotterill (ed.), Language in the legal process, 111–126. Hampshire & New York: Palgrave Macmillan.10.1057/9780230522770_2Search in Google Scholar
Culpeper, Jonathan & Merja Kytö. 2000. Data in historical pragmatics. Spoken interaction (re)cast as writing. Journal of Historical Pragmatics 1(2). 175–199. https://doi.org/10.1075/jhp.1.2.03cul.Search in Google Scholar
Fludernik, Monika. 1993. The fictions of language and the languages of fiction: The linguistic representation of speech and consciousness. London: Routledge.Search in Google Scholar
Galatolo, Renata. 2015. Reporting talk when testifying: Intertextuality, consistency, and transformation in witnesses’ use of direct reported speech. In Baudouin Dupret, Michael Lynch & Tim Berard (eds.), Law at work: Studies in legal ethnomethods (Oxford Studies in Language and Law), 139–162. New York: Oxford University Press.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190210243.003.0007Search in Google Scholar
Grund, Peter. 2007. From tongue to text: The transmission of the Salem witchcraft examination records. American Speech 82(2). 119–150. https://doi.org/10.1215/00031283-2007-005.Search in Google Scholar
Het Gerechtelijk Wetboek [The Judicial Code]. 1967. https://www.ejustice.just.fgov.be/cgi_loi/change_lg.pl?language=nl&la=N&cn=1967101004&table_name=wet (accessed 15 December 2023).Search in Google Scholar
Holt, Elizabeth & Rebecca Clift (eds.). 2007. Reporting talk: Reported speech in interaction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511486654Search in Google Scholar
Jones, Taylor, Jessica Kalbfeld, Ryan Hancock & Robin Clark. 2019. Testifying while black: An experimental study of court reporter accuracy in transcription of African American English. Linguistic Society of America 95(2). 216–252. https://doi.org/10.1353/lan.2019.0042.Search in Google Scholar
Leech, Geoffrey & Michael Short. 1981. Style in fiction. A linguistic introduction to English fictional prose. London & New York: Longman.10.2307/1772012Search in Google Scholar
McHale, Brian. 1978. Free indirect discourse: A survey of recent accounts. PTL: A Journal for Descriptive Poetics and Theory of Literature 3. 249–287.Search in Google Scholar
Monballyu, Jozef. 2001. De hoofdlijnen van de criminele strafprocedure in het graafschap Vlaanderen (16de tot 18de eeuw) [The main characteristics of the criminal procedure in the County of Flanders (16th to 18th century)]. In C. H. van Rhee, Frederic Stevens & Ernest Persoons (eds.), Voortschrijdend procesrecht: een historische verkenning [Evolving procedural law: a historical exploration], 63–108. Leuven: Leuven Universitaire Pers.Search in Google Scholar
Monballyu, Jozef. 2006. Zes eeuwen strafrecht. De geschiedenis van het Belgische strafrecht (1400–2000) [Six centuries of criminal law. The history of the Belgian criminal law (1400–2000)]. Leuven: Uitgeverij Acco.Search in Google Scholar
Moore, Colette. 2011. Quoting speech in early English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Philips, Susan. 1985. Reported speech as evidence in an American trial. In Deborah Tannen & James Alatis (eds.), Languages and linguistics: The interdependence of theory, data, and application, 140–153. Washington: Georgetown University Press.Search in Google Scholar
R Core Team. 2023. R: A language and environment for statistical computing. In R foundation for statistical computing. Vienna, Austria.Search in Google Scholar
Rickford, John & Sharese King. 2016. Language and linguistics on trial: Hearing Rachel Jeantel (and other vernacular speakers) in the courtroom and beyond. Linguistic Society of America 92(4). 948–988. https://doi.org/10.1353/lan.2016.0078.Search in Google Scholar
Roeh, Itzhak & Raphael Nir. 1990. Speech presentation in the Israel radio news: Ideological constraints and rhetorical strategies. Text 10(3). 225–244. https://doi.org/10.1515/text.1.1990.10.3.225.Search in Google Scholar
Semino, Elena & Michael Short. 2004. Corpus stylistics: Speech, writing and thought presentation in a corpus of English writing. London & New York: Routledge.10.4324/9780203494073Search in Google Scholar
Semino, Elena, Michael Short & Jonathan Culpeper. 1997. Using a corpus to test a model of speech and thought presentation. Poetics 25(1). 17–43. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0304-422x-97-00007-7.Search in Google Scholar
Short, Michael, Elena Semino & Martin Wynne. 2002. Revisiting the notion of faithfulness in discourse presentation using a corpus approach. Language and Literature 11(4). 325–355. https://doi.org/10.1177/096394700201100403.Search in Google Scholar
Tannen, Deborah. 1989. Talking voices: Repetition, dialogue, and imagery in conversational discourse. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Search in Google Scholar
Vandelanotte, Lieven. 2009. Speech and thought representation in English: A cognitive-functional approach. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter.10.1515/9783110215373Search in Google Scholar
von Roncador, Manfred. 1988. Zwischen Direkter und Indirekter Rede: Nichtwörtliche Direkte Rede, Erlebte Rede, Logophorische Konstruktionen und Verwandtes. New York: Max Niemeyer Verlag.10.1515/9783111678764Search in Google Scholar
Walker, Anne. 1986. Context, transcripts and appellate readers. Justice Quarterly 3(4). 409–427. https://doi.org/10.1080/07418828600089041.Search in Google Scholar
Walker, Terry & Peter Grund. 2017. “Speaking base approbious words” Speech representation in Early Modern English witness depositions. Journal of Historical Pragmatics 18(1). 1–29. https://doi.org/10.1075/jhp.18.1.01wal.Search in Google Scholar
Widlitzki, Bianca & Magnus Huber. 2016. Taboo language and swearing in eighteenth- and nineteenth- century English: A diachronic study based on the Old Bailey Corpus. In María José López-Couso, Belén Méndez-Naya, Paloma Núñez-Pertejo & Ignacio M. Palacios-Martínez (eds.), Corpus linguistics on the move: Exploring and understanding English through corpora, 313–337. New York: Oxford University Press.10.1163/9789004321342_015Search in Google Scholar
© 2025 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
