DISAPPEARING DISCOURSE: PERFORMATIVE TEXTS AND IDENTITY IN LEGAL CONTEXTS

Abstract

This article examines how survivors of domestic violence and the institutional authorities to whom they turn for assistance represent verbal aggression in direct quotations and indirect reported speech in legal testimony. Using the theoretical framework proposed by Briggs and Bauman (1992), I suggest that direct quotations and reported speech serve to manage intertextual relationships between (1) the event reported (the alleged abusive incident), (2) the reporting event (the interview), and (3) the legal record in the form of an affidavit. Alterations from direct to indirect reported speech are discussed in terms of their power to neutralize the client's emotion and her evaluation of herself and the alleged abuser. In addition, interviewer-initiated changes from direct to indirect reports of verbal abuse create a text that helps to suggest that the battered woman can be a credible witness for herself and for the legal institutions that agree to advocate for her.

Notes

¹Protection from abuse orders (PFAs) are court injunctions mandated by judges to keep allegedly abusive family members away from complaining parties.

² Barron's Law Dictionary (1984) defines an ex parte judicial proceeding as “one brought for the benefit of one party only, without notice to or challenge by an adverse party” (p. 170). In this case, clients are issued a temporary protective order until the case goes to court on a scheduled court date when the respondents (i.e., alleged abusers) have a chance to respond. Violations of a temporary ex parte order carry no criminal sanctions.

³An analysis of the interview and the structure of the affidavit appears in (Trinch & Berk-Seligson, 2002).

⁴All names, dates, places, and other identifying characteristics have been changed to protect the anonymity, maintain the confidentiality, and respect the privacy of all participants in this study.

⁵In this example, the speech of the abuser is characterized as an accusation and the speech reported inside the quotes indicates that it is not meant to exactly mimic what he said because the object pronoun refers to the reporter and not to the person it claims to be reporting about.

⁶Ungarynin is a language spoken by indigenous peoples of northwestern Australia. Whereas English incorporates a method for speakers both to report speech and to appear to quote it directly, Ungarynin does not.

⁷Of these, 152 appear on the affidavits at the district attorney's office and 250 appear on those at the pro bono law clinic.

⁸ Black's Law Dictionary (1999) defines hearsay as: Traditionally, testimony that is given by a witness who relates not what he or she knows personally, but what others have said, and that is therefore dependent on the credibility of someone other than the witness. Such testimony is generally inadmissible under the rules of evidence.

⁹However, all names, dates, and other identifying words have been changed to maintain confidentiality and protect anonymity.