Recruiting Frontstage Entextualization: drafting, artifactuality and written-ness as resources in police – witness interviews

Frances Rock

doi:10.1515/text-2017-0012

Article

Recruiting Frontstage Entextualization: drafting, artifactuality and written-ness as resources in police – witness interviews

Frances Rock
Frances Rock is Reader in the Centre for Language and Communication Research at Cardiff University. Her work investigates the mediation of experiences in social worlds by analyzing how people make meaning together. Her research examines language and policing, workplaces and multilingual cities. Her publications include the edited collection Legal-Lay Communication: Textual Travels in the Law (Oxford University Press, 2013). She is one of the editors of the International Journal of Speech, Language and the Law and is currently working on the project “Translation and Translanguaging: Investigating Linguistic and Cultural Transformations in Superdiverse Wards in Four UK Cities.”

Published/Copyright: June 6, 2017

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From the journal Text & Talk Volume 37 Issue 4

Abstract

This paper examines the complex literacy event through which police witness statements are produced in England and Wales. Witness statements are constructed through interviews which archetypally consist of a trajectory from the witness of the crime, through a police officer and onto a written page with the officer taking most control of the writing. This paper examines how this ostensibly inevitable trajectory materializes in practice. It identifies a distinctive way of traversing the trajectory through which the inner workings of the trajectory itself are put on display by the interviewing officer and through this display recursively influence the trajectory. This display of the trajectory draws on four discursive means: writing aloud, proposing wordings, reading back text just written and referring explicitly to the artifactuality of writing, which I label, collectively, “Frontstage Entextualization.” Through Frontstage Entextualization, the writing process comes to be used as a resource for both producing text and involving the witness in text production. The paper identifies three forms of activity which are accomplished through Frontstage Entextualization: First, frontstage drafting which allows words and phrases for possible inclusion to be weighed-up; secondly, frontstage scribing which foregrounds the technology of pen and paper which allows the witness to be appraised of writing processes; and finally, frontstaging the sequentiality of written-ness to textually resolve difficulties of witness memory. The paper concludes by suggesting that the analysis has shown how text trajectories can be made accessible to lay participants by institutional actors.

Keywords: Frontstage Entextualization; police interview; witness; text trajectories; writing

About the author

Frances Rock

Frances Rock is Reader in the Centre for Language and Communication Research at Cardiff University. Her work investigates the mediation of experiences in social worlds by analyzing how people make meaning together. Her research examines language and policing, workplaces and multilingual cities. Her publications include the edited collection Legal-Lay Communication: Textual Travels in the Law (Oxford University Press, 2013). She is one of the editors of the International Journal of Speech, Language and the Law and is currently working on the project “Translation and Translanguaging: Investigating Linguistic and Cultural Transformations in Superdiverse Wards in Four UK Cities.”

Acknowledgments

I am indebted to the editors of this special issue, Janet Maybin and Theresa Lillis. Their support and help with my paper has been invaluable. The work has also benefitted greatly from the insightful comments of anonymous reviewers, the journal editor, Srikant Sarangi, and colleagues in Cardiff, particularly Alison Wray. I am grateful for the time and attention from all of these people. All errors and omissions remain my own. Finally, thanks to the police officers who allowed me to observe their difficult and vital work and to the witnesses who invited me into their homes and workplaces at a difficult time.

Appendix

General transcription conventions
(.): A micropause of 0.9 seconds or less
(1.2): A pause of 1.0 second or more, duration indicated inside the brackets
// words //: Overlapping talk
=: Latching on
wor-: Self-correction or speaker breaking-off
((words)): Unclear speech (double brackets either contain deciphered speech or, where impossible, number of inaudible syllables)
wo:: The preceding segment was prolonged.
?: Rising intonation
Conventions specific to this article
“Speech marks”: Words being read back from the statement
small capitals: Words being proposed
italics: Writing-aloud
<Angled brackets>: Explicit reference to writing’s artifactuality
{Italics}: Writing-aloud and its duration

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Published Online: 2017-6-6

Published in Print: 2017-7-26

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Articles in the same Issue

https://doi.org/10.1515/text-2017-0012

Keywords for this article

Frontstage Entextualization; police interview; witness; text trajectories; writing