Strategies to specify the scope of questions in Chinese criminal courtroom interaction

Abstract

This study investigates how power asymmetry and pragmatic control are interactionally enacted through courtroom questioning in Chinese criminal trials. Drawing on audio recordings of three criminal cases, the analysis adopts a Conversation Analysis approach while situating the findings within interactional sociolinguistics. The data show that (i) defendants and witnesses are cautious in the way they answer questions, and they are reluctant and resistant to provide damaging information for their own side; (ii) in response, prosecutors and judges deploy questioning practices to reassert epistemic authority and constrain the scope of questions functioning as a mechanism of pragmatic control through which institutional power is exercised, and four strategies are identified: changing the format of the question, specifying evidence, preface and response prompt; (iii) the examiners frequently initiate the line of questioning with an open-ended question in the first turn to solicit responses with a wide epistemic scope and subsequently uses specifying strategies as follow-up questions to elicit detailed information.