John Gibbons
Hong Kong Baptist University

Abstract for IAFL Conference 2005, Cardiff

Pressure Points: how witnesses come to agree with what they do not believe

Many people who have appeared as witnesses in court will have found themselves accepting views with which they do not agree. How do examining counsel achieve this? Partly it is through the use of rhetoric: the logic of their ideas is difficult to challenge. But lawyers also achieve this through the language that they use - a remarkable linguistic feat. 

This paper will examine some of the linguistic resources that are used to pressure witnesses to agree with, and sometimes express, ideas to which they do not wish to subscribe. The language resources used include various means of exerting personal pressure; logical connections to other testimony and within the testimony; and the way in which ideas are expressed. The linguistic forms used are familiar to any linguist: it is the way that they are deployed that is of interest. The data for this paper come mainly from Hong Kong courtrooms.