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- Title
GENRE AND INSTITUTION: NARRATIVE TEMPORALITY IN FINAL ARGUMENTS.
- Authors
Isolda E. Carranza
- Abstract
Narrative data from criminal trials in Spanish display the following distinguishing features: The narrated events that are categorically found in final arguments are not the allegedly criminal actions but the witnesses' testimonies in the preceding days of the trial. The former actions tend to be organized into a story only in the prosecutor's texts. Temporal progression is weakened as a result of the combined effect of direct discourse ('scene' tempo), historical present (intemporality), nominalizations (actions as events), past participle constructions (actions as states), gerunds (simultaneity), past subjunctives as well as description sections and pauses in narrative action. This feature is part of a more general heterogeneity that characterizes the genre and involves resources from written and conversational discourse. Identification of the configuration of the final argument genre and consideration of production and reception conditions in the courts observed throw light on differences in the speech of defense lawyers and prosecutors, and on the legitimated language imposed by a state institution. (Oral Narrative, Narrative Time, Courtroom Discourse, Written Discourse, Oral Discourse)
- Subjects
WITNESSES; TRIALS (Law); FORENSIC orations
- Publication
Narrative Inquiry, 2003, Vol 13, Issue 1, p41
- ISSN
1387-6740
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1075/ni.13.1.02car