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In:Legal Pragmatics
Edited by Dennis Kurzon and Barbara Kryk-Kastovsky
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 288] 2018
► pp. 41–64

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Chapter 2
“How came you not to cry out?”

Pragmatic effects of negative questioning in child rape trials in the Old Bailey Proceedings 1730–1798

 | University of Leeds
Published online: 26 April 2018
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.288.02joh
Abstract
This study explores the representation of child rape victims through an examination of the pragmatic effects of negative questioning in eighteenth century trial records in the Old Bailey Proceedings (Hitchcock et al., 2012). We see how victim identities are linguistically constructed through methods of biased, stereotypical, and negative questioning of the rape allegation. Using a combined corpus-based, sociopragmatic, discourse-analytical approach, a corpus of 36 child rape trials has been collected from the larger online database, to explore how the choice of questioning constructs the defendant and the crime in benign ways and the victim in damaging ways. Analysis reveals how ideologies about rape were reproduced in the historical courtroom. Drawing on Reisigl and Wodak’s (2009) “discourse-historical approach” we are able to see how contextual factors, such as rape myths of the time (Simpson 1986), work in conjunction with negative questions to construct problematic victim identities. The legal-pragmatic effects of these questions and their underlying ideologies, which are both reflected and constituted in the social attitudes of the time, are amplified by the legal institution, contributing to a high proportion of not guilty verdicts and indictments to lesser charges. This research reflects on recent calls in the contemporary context for better victim treatment in general and more witness sensitivity in rape trials in particular.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2. Negative questions and their ideological origins
    • 2.1Controlling questions
    • 2.2Biased ideologies and rape myths
      • 2.2.1 What is a myth?
      • 2.2.2Rape myths
  • 3.Data
    • 3.1The “bad data” problem
    • 3.2Collecting a sample
  • 4.Analysing the corpus – patterns of meaning and powerful repertoires of practice
  • 5. Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
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