Questioning Strategies in Courtrooms

Abstract

This paper attempts to explore the different strategies of questioning in courtroom discourse, by highlighting the various discursive structures employed to form a question between courtroom interlocutors. More specifically, this research looks at the techniques employed in courtroom cross-examination to persuade the judge(s) to accept attorneys' accounts of what happened as well as the effectiveness of responses in fending off the influence and power of barristers. The corpus of this study is taken from 3 testimonies of prosecution witnesses in the trial of Timothy McVeigh concerning the Oklahoma City Bombing in 1997. By employing both quantitative and qualitative methods, the study investigates six questioning patterns, including wh-questions, yes-no questions, tag questions, so-questions, say-questions, and declarative questions. The study reveals that some types of questions used in courtrooms are strategically utilized to persuade juries and judges, confirm a piece of information, clarify an argument, threatening witnesses’ face, manipulate and/or coerce interlocutors within courtrooms. The paper also reveals that questioning is not only used to instigate an answer or a response but also to communicate information and draw conclusions.