Courtroom Discourses: An Analysis of the Westerfield Jury Trial

Given the increasing interest in the complex dynamics that inextricably combine the concepts of law and language, this work aims to examine these dynamics focusing on a particular communicative event, namely a trial by jury. More specifically, the case under scrutiny is California vs Westerfield, which was tried in California in 2002. The study is based on the observation of the communicative processes taking place between professionals (specifically, judges and lawyers) and jurors, who by definition do not possess any specific legal knowledge. The relationship between experts and non-experts in a trial is also determined by the peculiarity that professionals assumes an advantageous position in terms of communicative power and specialized knowledge, while the decisional power is ascribed exclusively to the jury. The primary goal of this work is to reach a better understanding of the complex nature of the techniques and discursive strategies that emerge in the communicative relationship between professionals and laymen in this particular event. From a communicative perspective, the jurors seem to assume the role of passive spectators, and the relationship between different participants is characterized by an asymmetric distribution of turns and limited active intervention. These dynamics are determined by the specific practices and procedural restrictions of an event that is by definition highly institutionalized. At the same time, however, the analysis takes into account the many nuances that define these dynamics and the various possibilities that the jurors have to intervene more actively in the process, particularly in the light of recent procedural developments. The work aims to observe the hybridity of the language used in court, adopting different perspectives. First, it investigates the complex relationship that emerges between written and oral communication in different phases of the trial. Hybridity is also observed from the point of view of the combination of different styles and registers. The study also examines to what extent the characteristics that are generally attributed to legal language, such as the presence of highly specialized vocabulary, complex syntactic structures and a very formal register emerge in this specific context. Particular attention is devoted to the observation of the specific strategies adopted to illustrate legal ideas and concepts to the jurors in light of the speaker’s various communicative purposes. Several kinds of tensions are observed within this context, such as the juxtaposition of colloquialisms and jargon, and the conflict between the desire for sensationalism and the need to move within a standardized framework that is characterized by specific procedural constraints.