Insincerity in lawyers’ questioning strategies in Malawian criminal courtroom discourse

Wellman Kondowe

doi:10.1515/text-2022-0083

Article

Insincerity in lawyers’ questioning strategies in Malawian criminal courtroom discourse

Wellman Kondowe
Wellman Kondowe is a senior lecturer in the department of Language, Cultural and Creative studies at Mzuzu University in Malawi. He holds a Master’s Degree and a PhD in Applied Linguistics from Central China Normal University, obtained in 2014 and 2020 respectively. His research interests include language and law, political discourse analysis, and applied language studies. His three recent publications appear as book chapters in Language and the Law: Perspectives in Forensic Linguistics from Africa and Beyond (2022, Sun Press, Stellenbosch); and Language, Crime and the Courts in Southern Africa and Beyond (2023, Sun Press, Stellenbosch). He is currently co-editing two books: Multilingualism in Southern Africa and The Language of Violence and Crime in the Global South to be published by Routledge and African Sun Press respectively.

Published/Copyright: December 14, 2023

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From the journal Text & Talk Volume 44 Issue 6

Abstract

This paper introduces a new perspective on analysing courtroom insincerity by focusing on questions asked by lawyers in the Malawi criminal justice system. The study aimed at examining the linguistic tools of tracing insincerity in lawyers’ questions; the varying degrees of insincerity in defence and prosecution lawyers and their rationale for making such choices. The study argues that courtroom setting is a war zone where different parties have divergent goals. Such encounters are much likely to yield higher chances of insincerity, which can be manifested in the questions lawyers ask. The analysis is based on data from four criminal cases, which were collected from the High Court of Malawi. My framework of analysing insincerity in questions examines the prescribed degrees of control that questions exert on the witnesses in relation to their productiveness. The findings indicate that, when examining witnesses, prosecutors exercise less insincerity while defence lawyers opt for questions with high insincerity. These imbalances in language use are enshrined in and supported by law in its statutes. The findings of this study have jurisprudential implications, especially in Africa which is internationally less represented in the studies of language and law.

Keywords: insincerity; questions; prosecution; defence; witness; Africa

Corresponding author: Wellman Kondowe, Department of Language, Cultural and Creative Studies, Mzuzu University, P/Bag 201, Luwinga, Mzuzu 2, Mzuzu, Malawi, E-mail: welkondowe@gmail.com

About the author

Wellman Kondowe

Wellman Kondowe is a senior lecturer in the department of Language, Cultural and Creative studies at Mzuzu University in Malawi. He holds a Master’s Degree and a PhD in Applied Linguistics from Central China Normal University, obtained in 2014 and 2020 respectively. His research interests include language and law, political discourse analysis, and applied language studies. His three recent publications appear as book chapters in Language and the Law: Perspectives in Forensic Linguistics from Africa and Beyond (2022, Sun Press, Stellenbosch); and Language, Crime and the Courts in Southern Africa and Beyond (2023, Sun Press, Stellenbosch). He is currently co-editing two books: Multilingualism in Southern Africa and The Language of Violence and Crime in the Global South to be published by Routledge and African Sun Press respectively.

Acknowledgement

I wish to acknowledge the Registrar of the Supreme Court of Appeal and High Court in Malawi for giving me the ethical clearance to conduct the study in the High Court of Malawi (Lilongwe and Mzuzu district registries).

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Received: 2022-05-09

Accepted: 2023-11-22

Published Online: 2023-12-14

Published in Print: 2024-11-26

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https://doi.org/10.1515/text-2022-0083

Keywords for this article

insincerity; questions; prosecution; defence; witness; Africa