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THE CASE STUDIES

Courtrooms

The Courtroom

The English courtroom resembles a discourse automat. It standardises the relational speech positions and their directions. As a discourse automat, the court disregards the diversity of cases. Speakers, scripts and utterances are all led through the same configuration and staging: a set of speech positions related to scopes of reception.

There are only tight exceptions permitted that additionally need to be announced prior to the hearing. Hence, the speech positions are set once the event commences. The automat relieves the hearing from negotiations about the appropriate framework for interaction. The standardisation is criticised, e.g. by feminists in the aftermath of rape-trials and the burden lying on “vulnerable witnesses”.

The figuration is already in place before the hearing sets off. Once the proceeding has started it is freed from negotiations regarding who speaks from where to whom and when. The fixed frame provides orientation for the audience and enables the parties to anticipate the conditions under which the case is going to be presented and challenged. This leads to some valuable criteria to decide upon the career of arguments.

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My ethnography on the English Crown Court procedure by BRILL
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