Courtroom Talk and Neocolonial Control

by Diana Eades

Overview

The book examines the social consequences of courtroom talk through detailed investigation of the cross-examination of three Australian Aboriginal boys in the case against six police officers charged with their abduction. Critical sociolinguistic analysis shows how courtroom talk, with its related assumptions about how language works, can serve to legitimize neocolonial control over Indigenous people.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9783110208320
Publisher:	De Gruyter Mouton
Publication date:	09/25/2008
Series:	Language, Power and Social Process [LPSP] Series
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	389
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Diana Eades, University of New England, Armidale, Australia.

Editorial Reviews

"The story that Eades tells is compelling. By carefully unpacking the speech patterns of boys, the questioning strategies of the defense counsel, and the historical context of the event, she leaves no question whether the boys were victimized by the police or whether the legal system participated in that victimization With its close attention to linguistic, social, and historical detail, this book makes an important contribution to sociolinguistics, sociolegal studies, and critical race studies."
Jennifer Andrus in: Language in Society 39/2010

"Courtroom Talk and Neocolonial Control is the most conceptually sophisticated, comprehensive and compelling attempt to manage the daunting challenge of macro-micro integration in the law and language literature – and one that brings this crucial theoretical issue to the forefront of not just language and law studies or forensic linguistics but social science more generally. This is necessary reading not only for socio- and forensic linguists but law and society/social theorists as well."
Greg Matoesian in: International Journal of Speech Language and the Law 1/2009

"This is an excellent book."
M. Catherine Gruber in: Linguist List 20.2284

"[T]his is a fascinating book that offers important insights into how lawyers use linguistic and discursive strategies to control the testimony of witnesses and into the state of inequality facing Aboriginal people in Australia. [...] [T]his is an important book for all those interested in courtroom discourse, neocolonialism, and the critical analysis of language use." Laura Felton Rosulek in: Journal of Sociolinguistics 16/2 (2012)

From the Publisher