A Study on the Questioning Strategies of Police Interrogation: An Adaptation-based Approach to Thematic Choices

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Zhang Luping
School of Foreign Languages, China University of Political Science and La

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Abstract

The present study is an attempt to probe into the questioning strategies of police interrogation from a linguistic perspective. We draw on a combination of Halliday’s (1994) Theory of Theme and Verscheueren’s (1999) Theory of Linguistic Adaptation. By following the two theories, we construct a conceptual framework for our own. In the light of this framework, we address two research questions: 1) How are different types of Theme and different patterns of thematic progression adopted by interrogators in police interrogation? 2) How can each thematic choice be interpreted pragmatically as a dynamic process of adaptation? Based on the transcripts of police interrogation randomly collected in two police stations and one court in Zhejiang Province and Guangdong Province, we investigate the questioning strategies of police interrogation by approaching the three types of Theme (marked Theme, single Theme and elliptical Theme) and the four patterns of thematic progression (constant Theme, constant Rheme, linear Rheme and linear Theme) in terms of contextual correlates and salience level. We tentatively draw the conclusion as follows. The interrogators’ thematic choices are well adapted to linguistic and communicative contexts; and the choice making is a dynamic process of linguistic adaptation at various levels of salience.