Cover not available

Article published In: Journal of Language Aggression and Conflict
Vol. 4:2 (2016) ► pp.151–177

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload PDF
authorization required

“When did you decide to tell the truth?”

Negotiating truth in rape trials before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia

 | University of Huddersfield, UK
Published online: 20 December 2016
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/jlac.4.2.01jef
Whilst there has been much investigation of courtroom testimony and other linguistic aspects of legal process, there has been little consideration of the linguistic basis of war crimes tribunals such as the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), which provides the data for this article. The testimony of witnesses in ICTY rape trials is investigated to discover how their examination by counsel may affect these alleged victims of a brutal war. The approach taken is textual as well as discoursal, focusing on the co-construction of meaning between counsel and witnesses — and its failures. The frequent meta discussions about the nature of truth in the testimony shows up some disjunction between the parties in their understanding of the process they are engaged in, leading to the conclusion that the witnesses may have been ‘revictimised’
References (39)
Archer, Dawn. 2011. “Facework and Im/politeness across Legal Contexts: An Introduction.” Journal of Politeness Research 71: 1–19. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bassham, Gregory. 2004. Critical Thinking. New York: McGraw-Hill.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cotterill, Janet. 2003. Language and Power in Court: A Linguistic Analysis of the O.J. Simpson Trial. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2010. “Interpersonal Issues in Court: Rebellion, Resistance and Other Ways of Behaving Badly.” In Interpersonal Pragmatics, ed. by Miriam A. Locher and Sage L. Graham, 353–380. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dembour, Marie-Bénédicte, and Emily Haslam. 2004. “Silencing Hearings? Victim-Witnesses at War Crimes Trials.” European Journal of International Law 15 (1): 151–177. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Drew, Paul, and John Heritage (eds). 1992. Talk at Work: Interaction in Institutional Settings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Eades, Diana. 2008. Courtroom Talk and Neocolonial Control. Berlin, DEU: Mouton de Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ehrlich, Susan. 2001. Representing Rape: Language and Sexual Consent. London: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Goffman, Erving. 1981. Forms of Talk. Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Goodwin, Charles. 1994. “Professional Vision.” American Anthropologist 96 (3): 606–633. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Grice, H. Paul. 1975. “Logic and Conversation.” In Syntax and Semantics 3: Speech Acts, ed. by Peter Cole and Jerry Morgan, 41–58. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Haack, Susan. 2008. “The Whole Truth and Nothing but the Truth.” Midwest Studies in Philosophy 321: 20–35. [URL], [URL], [URL]. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
ICTY. IT-96-23 &23/1 Case Information Sheet. Accessed July 12, 2013. [URL]
. IT-96-23 &23/1 Transcripts. Accessed July 12, 2013.
. IT-96-23 &23/1 Trial Chamber Judgement 22/02/2001. Accessed July 12, 2013. [URL]
. Key Figures. Updated 08/07/2013. Accessed July 12, 2013.
Jeffries, Lesley. 2003. “Not a Drop to Drink: Emerging Meanings in Local Newspaper Reporting of the 1995 Water Crisis in Yorkshire.” Text 23 (4): 513–538. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2010. Critical Stylistics: The Power of English. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2014a. “Interpretation.” In The Cambridge Handbook of Stylistics, ed. by Peter Stockwell and Sarah Whiteley, 469–486. Cambridge: C.U.P.. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2014b. “Critical Stylistics.” In The Routledge Handbook of Stylistics, ed. by Michael Burke, 408–420. London: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jeffries, Lesley, and Matthew Evans. 2015. “The Rise of Choice as an Absolute ‘Good’: A Study of British Manifestos, 1900–2010.” Language and Politics 14 (6): 751–777.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Johnson, Alison, and Ruth Clifford. 2011. “Polite Incivility in Defensive Attack: Strategic Politeness and Impoliteness in Cross-examination in the David Irving vs. Penguin Books Ltd and Deborah Lipstadt Trial.” Journal of Politeness Research 7 (1): 43–71. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Komter, Martha. 2012. “The Career of a Suspect’s Statement: Talk, Text, Context.” Discourse Studies 14 (6): 731–752. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mani, Rama. 2002. Beyond Retribution: Seeking Justice in the Shadows of War. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Matoesian, Greg. 1993. Reproducing Rape: Domination through Talk in the Courtroom. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2005. “Nailing Down an Answer: Participations of Power in Trial Talk.” Discourse Studies 7 (6): 733–759. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
McCaul, Kim. 2011. “Understanding Courtroom Communication through Cultural Scripts.” In Exploring Courtroom Discourse: The Language of Power and Control, ed. by Anne Wagner and Le Cheng, 11–28. Farnham: Ashgate.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Medica Mondiale. 2009. “...And that it does not Happen to Anyone Anywhere in the World”. The Trouble with Rape Trials: Views of Witnesses, Prosecutors and Judges on Prosecuting Sexualised Violence during the War in the former Yugoslavia. [URL]Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Méndez, Juan E. 1997. “Accountability for Past Abuses.” Human Rights Quarterly 19 (2): 255–282. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Minow, Martha. 1998. Between Vengeance and Forgiveness: Facing History after Genocide and Mass Violence. Boston: Beacon Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Perrin, L.Timothy, H. Mitchell Caldwell, and Carol Chase. 2003. The Art and Science of Trial Advocacy. Cincinnati, OH: Anderson.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Silverstein, Michael. 2010. “Nōlō Contendere: American Legal Advocacy and the Verbal Agōn.” Humanities Day, University of Chicago.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Simpson, Paul. 1993. Language, Ideology and Point of View. London: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Stover, Eric. 2005. The Witnesses: War Crimes and the Promise of Justice in the Hague. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Teitel, Ruti G. 2000. Transitional Justice. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Theissen, Gunnar. 2004. Supporting Justice, Co-existence and Reconciliation after Armed Conflict: Strategies for Dealing with the Past. Berlin: Berghof Forschungszentrum für konstruktive Konfliktbearbeitung. Accessed July 12, 2013. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Weinstein, Harvey M., and Eric Stover. 2004. “Introduction: Conflict, Justice and Reclamation.” In My Neighbor, My Enemy. Justice and Community in the Aftermath of Mass Atrocity, ed. by Eric Stover and Harvey M. Weinstein, 1–26. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (1)

Cited by one other publication

Douthwaite, John, Daniela Francesca Virdis & Elisabetta Zurru
2017. Introduction. In The Stylistics of Landscapes, the Landscapes of Stylistics [Linguistic Approaches to Literature, 28], ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 13 november 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue