H. P. Grice, in his theory of conversational implicature, demonstrated the heavy reliance of linguistic communication on contextual cues (Grice, 1975). In “Logic and Conversation” (1975), he states, “Make your conversational contribution such as is required, at the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged.” This Cooperative Principle (CP) asserts that participants in a conversation will tailor their contributions to the conversation to further its purpose. Most conversations do follow the cooperative principle in that the speaker wants to convey her intention and the listener wants to understand the speaker’s intention. Situations in which the cooperative principle is not in place are more unusual or contrived. The legal system in the United States can create situations in which participants of a conversation are not operating under the CP. While the court’s purpose is ostensibly to discover truth and serve justice, the prosecution and defense are clearly at odds in the purpose of their utterances. In this essay, I will explore ways in which lawyers, witnesses, law enforcement officials and suspects exploit the tension between the artificial environment of the courtroom with its strictly defined rules and the expected norms of conversation for their own ends.
The first example in which attorneys and witnesses manipulate expectations is through implicature. Grice defined the concept of an “implicature” as something different from the literal meaning of the sentences uttered that occurs when participants of a conversation are observing the CP. Grice defined four basic rules falling under the Cooperative Principle:
1. Maxim of Quality – Be truthful
2. Maxim of Quan...
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I wanted to look at the investigative and criminal procedures following the arrest of an alleged criminal and the powerful effects via testimonies and evidence (or lack thereof) it can have on a case.There is an importance of the courts in regards to crime that can’t be over looked. The primary function of the criminal justice system is to uphold the established laws, which define what we understand as deviant in this society.
Hickey, T. J. (2010). Taking Sides: Clashing Views in Crime and Criminology, 9th Edition. New York, NY: The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
In this case, when individuals argue about events from the past, they make use of judicial rhetoric and forensic argument assists individuals in determining who did something rather than what individuals are supposed to do (Sheard, 1996).
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Commonsense justice represents the citizens and what they think what is right and wrong; just and fair. The bias that jurors have inside themselves, they are taking those emotions to the jury box as they are about to judge the “defendant and the law.” What the citizens feel the law should be is what they think. (Norman J. Finkel, 2000). Instructions for jurors were “rewritten using psycholinguistic principles” which [illustrated] that their comprehension improved.” “Commonsense justice and jury instructions,” adjacent on an “instructive and reciprocating connection,” continued to demonstrate the studies of how citizens interpreted the instructions. (Norman J. Finkel, 2000)
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...T. M. (1997). Can the jury disregard that information? The use of suspicion to reduce the prejudicial effects of retrial publicity and inadmissible testimony. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 23(11), 1215-1226.
Hickey, T.J. (2010) Taking Sides: Clashing Views in Crime and Criminology, 9th Edition, New York: McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
“Witness for the Prosecution” superbly demonstrated a realist view of the operating procedures in a courtroom. The actors within the courtroom were easy to identify, and the steps transitioned smoothly from the arrest to the reading of the verdict. The murder trial of Leonard Vole provided realistic insight into how laws on the books are used in courtroom proceedings. With the inferior elements noted, the superior element of the court system in “Witness for the Prosecution” was the use of the adversary system. Both sides of the adversary system were flawlessly protrayed when the prosecution and defense squared off in the courtroom.
Lippman, M. (2012). Contemporary Criminal Law Concepts, Cases and Controversies (3rd ed.). [Vitalsouce Bookshelf version]. Retrieved from http://online.vitalsource.com/books/9781452277660/5/3
Some kinds of utterances which have an indicative grammatical form seem, for different reasons, to be unable to say something true of the world. Logical contradictions are only the prime example of something the author baptizes impossible descriptions. So-called performative contradictions (e.g., "I do not exist") make up another kind, but there are at least two more such kinds: negating affirmations and performatives which cannot be explained within the philosophy of language. Only philosophical anthropology can explain their feature of "impossibleness," and a distinction between unreflective and reflective consciousness is central to the explanation. Particularly important here is G. H. Mead's distinction between two aspects of the self: the "I" and the "me." Each of the four kinds of impossible descriptions distinguished has its own contrary opposite. These are, in turn, logical tautologies, performative tautologies, affirming negations, and omissive performatives. The last three types as types have not received the philosophical recognition that they deserve. All four fit a general characterization which is given as a definition of the concept of superfluous description.
Grice’s theory of implicature centers on what he has named the “Cooperative Principle,” and how it relates directly to conversational implications that occur in our daily speech. In the implicature section of his essay “Logic and Conversation,” Grice explains that there are common goals of conversation that we try to achieve within our discussions. For example, some of these common goals are that there is a shared aim of the conversation, each person’s contributions to the conversation should be dependent upon each other, and the conversation continues until it is mutually agreed that it is over. In order to preserve these goals, we find it easiest, as cooperative human beings, to stick to the Cooperative Principle, and along with it, the maxims that Grice lays out. Based on an assumption that we do not generally deviate from this Cooperative Principle without good reason, we can find out things that are implicitly stated. Implicature is the part of our spoken language when these maxims are broken purposefully, and it involves the implicitly understood form of communication: things that are implied or suggested. While Grice’s theory of implicature is a very careful assessment of implied statements, there are some faults that are found within his argument. Because of these issues, Grice’s theory neither offers a solution to the formalist and infomalist problems, nor provides an infallible method of evaluating implicature in everyday conversation.
Legal Information Institute. (2010, August 9). Retrieved February 17, 2012, from Cornell University Law School: http://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/criminal_law