Fragmented Narratives and Multiple Tellers: Witness and Defendant Accounts in Trials

Abstract

This article examines the nature and structure of witness and defendant narrative accounts in the evidential portions of courtroom trials, using the O.J. Simpson (1996), Oklahoma Bombers (1997) and Louise Woodward (1998) trials as a database. The article proposes a means of distinguishing narrative from non-narrative accounts, using Labov's definition of the `minimal narrative' as a starting point, and puts forward a modified model of narrative structure. A range of narrative structures are explored, and the model is used to analyse a series of representative example narratives taken from the trial data. Different types of narrative fragmentation produced by multiple tellers of the same narrative are also examined, along with the frequent disjunction between `tellers' and `knowers'. Lastly, the article explores the relationship between narrative structures and narrative fragmentation and the discourse strategies used by lawyers in direct and cross-examination.

Keywords

courtroom evidence narrative narrative structures strategic discourse trials witness accounts

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