B-events are matters which are better known to listeners than to speakers. This paper studies the detectives’ use of B-event statements in two different environments in their interactions with suspects/witnesses. The first type of environment are relatively co-operative sequences during which the aim is the reconstruction of events and constructing the record; here, B-event statements are realised as confirmation seeking questions. The second type of environment, a hostile interactional environment, is composed of argumentative sequences in which detectives aim to determine who are the perpetrators of crimes; in these sequences, the detectives’ B-event statements are realised as accusations. While performing the two activities, the detectives signal different epistemic levels and stances at the turn level. Thus, the former B-event statements are mostly epistemically downgraded, while the latter are mostly upgraded, in order to facilitate undertaking these different activities during police questioning.
ArminenI (2005) Institutional Interaction: Studies of Talk at Work. Ashgate: Aldershot.
2.
BoldenGB (2018) Speaking ‘out of turn’: Epistemics in action in other-initiated repair. Discourse Studies20(1): 142–162.
3.
CarterE (2011) Analysing Police Interviews: Laughter, Confessions and the Tape. London: Continuum.
4.
ChevalierFHGMooreJ (2015) Producing and managing restricted activities: An introduction to avoidance and withholding in institutional interaction. In: ChevalierFHGMooreJ (eds) Producing and Managing Restricted Activities: Avoidance and Withholding in Institutional Interaction. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins, pp.1–43.
5.
CliftRRaymondCW (2018) Actions in practice: On details in collections. Discourse Studies20(1): 90–119.
6.
DrewP (2018a) Epistemics – The rebuttal special issue: An introduction. Discourse Studies20(1): 3–13.
7.
DrewP (2018b) Epistemics in social interaction. Discourse Studies20(1): 163–187.
8.
DrewP (1992) Contested evidence in courtroom cross-examination: The case of a trial for rape. In: DrewPHeritageJ (eds) Talk at Work: Interaction in Institutional Settings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp.470–520.
9.
EkströmMBruhnAThunmanE (2019) A caring interview: Polar questions, epistemic stance and care in examinations of eligibility for social benefits. Discourse Studies21(4): 375–397.
10.
HeritageJ (2012a) Epistemics in action: Action formation and territories of knowledge. Research on Language and Social Interaction45(1): 1–29.
11.
HeritageJ (2012b) The epistemic engine: Sequence organization and territories of knowledge. Research on Language and Social Interaction45(1): 30–52.
12.
HeritageJ (2018) The ubiquity of epistemics: A rebuttal to the “epistemics of epistemics’ group”. Discourse Studies20(1): 14–56.
13.
HeritageJRaymondG (2005) The terms of agreement: Indexing epistemic authority and subordination in assessment sequences. Social Psychology Quarterly68: 15–38.
14.
HeritageJRaymondG (2012) Navigating epistemic landscapes: acquiescence, agency and resistance in responses to polar questions. In: De RuiterJP (ed.) Questions: Formal, Functional and Interactional Perspectives. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 179–192.
15.
JohnsonA (2002) So. . .? Pragmatic implications of so-prefaced questions in formal police interviews. In: CotterillJ (ed.) Language in the Legal Process. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, pp.91–110.
16.
KidwellM (2009) What happened? An epistemics of before and after in “at-the-scene” police questioning. Research on Language and Social Interaction42(1): 20–41.
17.
KomterML (2002) The construction of records in Dutch police interrogations. Information Design Journal11(2–3): 201–213.
18.
KomterML (2003) The interactional dynamics of eliciting a confession in a Dutch police interrogation. Research on Language and Social Interaction36(4): 433–470.
19.
KomterML (2005) Understanding problems in an interpreter-mediated police interrogation. In: BurnsSL (ed.) Ethnographies of Law and Social Control. Sociology of Crime, Law and Deviance, vol. 6. Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Elsevier, pp.203–224.
20.
LabovWFanshelD (1977) Therapeutic Discourse: Psychotherapy as Conversation. New York, NY: Academic Press.
21.
LindwallOLymerGIvarssonJ (2016) Epistemic status and the recognisability of social actions. Discourse Studies18(5): 500–525.
22.
LynchMMacbethD (2016) The epistemics of Epistemics: An introduction. Discourse Studies18: 493–499.
23.
LynchMWongJ (2016) Reverting to a hidden interactional order: Epistemics, informationism, and conversation analysis. Discourse Studies18: 526–549.
24.
MacbethDWongJ (2016) The story of “Oh”, part 2: Animating transcript. Discourse Studies18: 574–596.
25.
MacbethDWongJLynchM (2016) The story of “Oh”, part 1: Indexing structure, animating transcript. Discourse Studies18: 550–573.
26.
MaxwellAJDrewP (1979) Order in Court: The Organisation of Verbal Interaction in Judicial Settings. London: Macmillan.
27.
MaynardDWClaymanSE (2018) Mandarin ethnomethodology or mutual interchange?Discourse Studies20(1): 120–141.
28.
PomerantzA (1980) Telling my side: “Limited access” as a “fishing” device. Sociological Inquiry50: 186–198.
29.
PomerantzA (1986) Extreme case formulations: A way of legitimizing claims. Human Studies9: 219–229.
30.
RaymondG (2003) Grammar and social organization: Yes/no-type interrogatives and the structure of responding. American Sociological Review68: 939–967.
31.
RaymondG (2018) Which epistemics? Whose conversation analysis?Discourse Studies20(1): 57–89.
32.
RaymondJ (2009) Grammar and social relations: Alternative forms of yes/no-type initiating actions in health visitor interaction. In: FreedAFEhrlichS (eds) “Why Do You Ask?” The Function of Questions in Institutional Discourse. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, pp.87–107.
33.
StiversTRossanoF (2010) Mobilizing response. Research on Language and Social Interaction43: 3–31.
34.
TsuchiaK (2017) Positioning oneself through epistemic assertion sequences: A time-aligned corpus analysis of BELF Small Talk. Corpus Pragmatics1(2): 159–184.
35.
WhiteLJ (2019) The construction of “innocence”: Comparing responses to criminal accusations across legal and non-legal settings. PhD thesis, Loughborough University, UK.
36.
WilliamsVWebbJDowlingS, et al. (2019) Direct and indirect ways of managing epistemic asymmetries when eliciting memories. Discourse Studies21(2): 199–215.
