Cover not available

Article published In: Certainty and Uncertainty in Dialogue
Edited by Andrzej Zuczkowski
[Language and Dialogue 4:1] 2014
► pp. 93–111

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

The risks of uncertainty

Hedging strategies in rape trial discourse

 | University of Rome “Tor Vergata”, Italy
Published online: 20 May 2014
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/ld.4.1.06pon
This paper presents an analysis of the forms and functions that a normal conversational strategy like hedging can assume in an institutionalized form of discourse — in this case, the courtroom, and particularly, in a specific juridical text-type: the cross-examination of the victim-witness in a rape trial. The study aims to show principally how the defence attorney of the accused exploits the hedging strategies of the female victim-witness in order to discredit her testimony and thereby win the case for the defence. By so doing, the argumentation will make two theoretical points. The first point is disciplinary, in that it will demonstrate the powerful contribution of the language sciences to the identification and unveiling of social injustice. The second point is ideological, in that it will show how some areas of Anglo-American institutions continue to reflect a social tendency towards leniency in the face of violence against women.
References (49)
BBC News. 2012. “Rape Survivors Open Up About Their Experiences.” [URL], last date of access 28 March 2012, 09:13 GMT.
. 2012. “Hidden Scale of Rape’ Highlighted by Mumset Campaign.” [URL], last date of access 12 March 2012, 13:20 GMT.
Bilmes, Jack. 1988. “The Concept of Preference in Conversation Analysis.” Language in Society 17 (2): 161-181. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Brown, Penelope, and Steven Levinson. 1978. “Universals in Language Usage: Politeness Phenomena.” In Questions and Politeness: Strategies in Social Interaction, ed. by Esther N. Goody, 56-311. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1987. Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Caffi, Claudia. 1999. “On Mitigation.” Journal of Pragmatics 311: 881-909. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2007. Mitigation. Amsterdam: Elsevier.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Clemen, Gudrun. 1997. “The Concept of Hedging: Origins, Approaches and Definitions.” In Hedging and Discourse: Approaches to the Analysis of a Pragmatic Phenomenon in Academic Texts, ed. by Raija Markkanen, and Hartmut Schröder, 235-248. Berlin, New York: de Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Conley, John M., and William M. O’Barr. 1998. Just Words: Language and Power. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.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. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(ed.). 2007. The Language of Sexual Crime. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire and New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Drew, Paul. 1990. “Strategies in the Contest between Lawyer and Witness in Cross-examination.” In Language in the Judicial Process, ed. by Judith N. Levi, and Anne Graffam Walder, 39-64. New York: Plenum Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1992. “Contested Evidence in Courtroom Cross-examination: The Case of a Trial for Rape.” In Talk at Work: Interaction in Institutional Settings, ed. by Paul Drew, and John Heritage, 470-520. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.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
Fairclough, Norman. 2003. Analysing Discourse: Textual Analysis for Social Research. London: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Finch, Emily, and Vanessa Munro. 2008. “Lifting the Veil: The Use of Focus Groups and Simulated Trial in Legal Research.” Journal of Law and Society 351: 30-51. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fraser, Bruce. 1975. “Hedged Performatives.” In Syntax and Semantics, vol. 31, ed. by Peter Cole, and Jerry L. Morgan, 187-201. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1980. “Conversational Mitigation.” Journal of Pragmatics 41: 341-350. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2010a. “Pragmatic Competence: The Case of Hedging.” In New Approaches to Hedging, ed. by Gunther Kaltenböck, Wiltrud Mihatsch, and Stefan Schneider, 15-34. Bingley, UK.: Emerald. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2010b. “Hedging in Political Discourse: The Bush 2007 Press Conferences.” In Perspectives in Politics and Discourse, ed. by Urszula Okulska, and Piotr Cap, 201-214. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Heydon, Georgina. 2011. “Silence: Civil Right or Privilege? A Discourse Analytic Response to a Legal Problem.” Journal of Pragmatics 43 (9): 2308-2316. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hyland, Ken. 1994. “Hedging in Academic Writing and EAP Textbooks.” English for Specific Purposes 13 (3): 239-256. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kaltenböck, Gunther, Wiltrud Mihatsch, and Stefan Schneider. 2010. New Approaches to Hedging. Bingley, UK.: Emerald. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Konradi, Amanda. 1999. “I Don’t have to be Afraid of You. Rape Survivors’ Emotion Management in Court.” Symbolic Interaction 22 (3): 45-77. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2007. Taking the Stand: Rape Survivors and the Prosecution of Rapists. Westport, Connecticut and London: Praeger.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Konradi, Amanda, and Tina Burger. 2000. “Having the Last Word: An Examination of Rape Survivors’ Participation in Sentencing.” Violence Against Women 6 (49): 353-397. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lakoff, George. 1972. “Hedges: A Study in Meaning Criteria and the Logic of Fuzzy Concepts.” Papers from the Eighth Regional Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society 183-228. Reprinted in Journal of Philosophical Logic 1973, 2 (4): 458-508, and in Contemporary Research in Philosophical Logic and Linguistic Semantics, ed. by Donald Hockney, et al., 221-271. Dodrecht: Kluwer.
Lakoff, Robin Tolmach. 1973a. “Language and Woman’s Place.” Language in Society 2 (1): 45-79. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1973b. “The Logic of Politeness: Or Minding Your P’s & Q’s.” Papers from the Ninth Regional Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society , 292-305.
. 1975. Language and Women’s Place. New York: Harper and Row.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Markkanen, Raija, and Hartmut Schröder. 1997. Hedging and Discourse: Approaches to the Analysis of a Pragmatic Phenomenon in Academic Texts. Berlin, New York: de Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Matoesian, Gregory M. 1993. Reproducing Rape: Domination through Talk in the Courtroom. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2001. Law and the Language of Identity: Discourse in the Kennedy Smith Rape Trial. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
O’Barr, William M. 1995. Linguistic Evidence: Language, Power, and Strategy in the Courtroom. London: Academic Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ponterotto, Diane. 2007. “The Repertoire of Complicity vs. Coercion: The Discursive Trap of the Rape Trial Protocol.” In The Language of Sexual Crime, ed. by Janet Cotterill, 104-125. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire and New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Prince, Ellen, Joel Frader, and Charles Bosk.1982. “On Hedging in Physician-Physician Discourse.” In Linguistics and the Professions: Proceedings of the Second Annual Delaware Symposium on Language Studies , ed. by Robert J. Di Pietro, 83-97. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sanday, Peggy Reeves. 1996. A Woman Scorned: Acquaintance Rape on Trial. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Schröder, Harmut, and Dagmar Zimmer. 1997. “Hedging Research in Pragmatics; A Bibliographical Research Guide to Hedging.” In Hedging and Discourse: Approaches to the Analysis of a Pragmatic Phenomenon in Academic Texts, ed. by Raija Markkanen, and Harmut Schröder, 249-271. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Shuy, Roger W. 1996. Language Crimes: Use and Abuse of Language Evidence in the Courtroom. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Tannen, Deborah. 2001 [1990]. You Just Don’t Understand: Women and Men in Conversation. New York: HarperCollins.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Temkin, Jennifer, and Barbara Krahé. 2008. Sexual Assault and the Justice Gap: A Question of Attitude. Portland, Ore.: Hart.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
The Trial of Job Wells of Redburn in the Country of Hertford for a Rape Committed on the Body of his Own Daughter, Maria Wells. 1753. London: C. Corbett, at Addsion Head, Fleet Street.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Van Dijk, Teun A. 2008. Discourse and Power. Houndsmills: Palgrave. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Walker, Garthine. 1998. “Rereading Rape and Sexual Violence in Early Modern England.” Gender & History 10 (1): 1-25. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wodak, Ruth (ed.). 1997. Gender and Discourse. London: Sage.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(ed.). 2013. Critical Discourse Analysis: Four Volumes. London: Sage. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (4)

Cited by four other publications

Juszczyk, Konrad & Barbara Konat
2024. The use of discourse markers in conversation: The case of “myślę” – “I think” in Polish Career Clean Coaching. Lingua Posnaniensis 66:1 ► pp. 7 ff. DOI logo
Baider, Fabienne & Maria Constantinou
2019. Discours de haine dissimulée, discours alternatifs et contre-discours. Semen 47 DOI logo
Ponterotto, Diane
2018. Hedging in political interviewing. Pragmatics and Society 9:2 ► pp. 175 ff. DOI logo
Batt, Martine, Christine Bocerean, Marianne Coutelour, Thomas Beckert, Ophélie Theiller & Alain Trognon
2015. Enunciative identity and individual representation of rape. Language and Dialogue 5:1 ► pp. 152 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 25 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