The Performative Functions of Interrogative Sentences in American Criminal Case Cross-examination

DOI

10.2991/iccessh-19.2019.225How to use a DOI?

Keywords

performative function; Speech Act Theory; interrogative sentence; cross-examination; American criminal case

Abstract

Speech Act Theory, proposed by J. L. Austin, establishes the opinion that people are performing actions while speaking. According to this theory, the following three acts are generated simultaneously when a speech is uttered: locutionary act, illocutionary act and perlocutionary act. Cross-examination plays a key role in American criminal case hearing, during which many kinds of interrogative sentences will be involved, for example, tag question, declarative question, general question and special question. From the perspective of performative function, the speeches in cross-examination are dialogues rather than conversations, which answer the question “what to ask”, namely the prosecutors and counsels should only ask the questions to which they have already had the answers. Furthermore, the performative functions of each interrogative sentence vary in the degree of closure, doubt, dominant power, de-contextualisation power, leading power and presupposition power. The exploration of performative functions about various interrogative sentences will help prosecutors and counsels to choose the appropriate way to ask.

Copyright

© 2019, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press.

Open Access

This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Wenjun Wang
PY  - 2019/07
DA  - 2019/07
TI  - The Performative Functions of Interrogative Sentences in American Criminal Case Cross-examination
BT  - Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Contemporary Education, Social Sciences and Humanities (ICCESSH 2019)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 1002
EP  - 1006
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/iccessh-19.2019.225
DO  - 10.2991/iccessh-19.2019.225
ID  - Wang2019/07
ER  -