Objection Overruled: Language Dynamics and Power Relations in Courtroom Interactions

Abstract

This article adopts a qualitative approach to examine language dynamics and power relations in interactions among participants in High Court proceedings in Calabar, southern Nigeria. The study utilises insights from speech act theory and the theory of language and power to account for the way in which institutional linguistic choices depict social roles, conveyed through speech acts that enact unequal power relations in the courtroom context. Data were generated during a year of fieldwork, through observation, note taking, and reading of legal proceedings in law chambers. The findings show the patterned linguistic peculiarities that characterise the interactions between participants (judges, counsel, litigants, witnesses, interpreters, and audiences) in the courtroom setting. The interactions instantiate a structured discourse pattern that appropriates discourse roles, discourse control, turn-taking, and talk domination as power devices. These discourse practices index asymmetry in power relations between participants and situate the courtroom as a site with institutionalised idiosyncrasies for power rehearsal.

Keywords:

• language dynamics
• power in language
• social power
• power relations
• courtroom interactions