In:Identity Perspectives from Peripheries
Edited by Yoshiko Matsumoto and Jan-Ola Östman
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 352] 2025
► pp. 218–234
Chapter 10Death-Row inmates’ last statements
Establishing identity through expressions of responsibility
Published online: 13 June 2025
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.352.10ost
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.352.10ost
Abstract
The study uses different types of responsibility and their linguistic manifestations as discourse
analytic tools to get at a deeper understanding of a highly atypical genre: the last statements by inmates in Texas
who are about to be executed. The data consist of transcribed last statements (a corpus of about 48,000 words) from
the period 1982–2021, during which 573 executions took place in Texas. We discuss the different kinds of expressions
of taking or neglecting to take (full or partial) responsibility for one’s deeds. The analyses exploit the means of
traditional approaches to responsibility, which distinguish between moral, legal (or formal), interpersonal, and
collective responsibility, and add to this the strategy of compliance. Inmates’ last statements form an atypical
genre, but through detailed analyses of peripheral text types and genres like these, we can gain a better
understanding of what goes on in more mundane kinds of discourse. We furthermore argue that through analyses of
atypical kinds of discourse such as the last statements, the very concept of identity construction can be approached
in an all-encompassing manner.
Article outline
- 1.Background
- 2.Approach
- 3.Data
- 4.Analysis and results
- 5.Implications and discussion
Notes References
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