Practicing ground rules in police interviews with child witnesses

Bibliographic Data

ID2883548
AuthorsGuusje Jol (0000-0002-0331-5214, Utrecht University, corresponding author), W Stommel (0000-0003-2345-1691, Radboud University Nijmegen)
Year2024
Volume53
Issue3
Pages445-469
Publication date2024-06-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueLanguage in Society (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0047-4045 • E-ISSN: 1469-8013
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0047404523000337
OpenAlexW4378639758
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited35

In police interviews with child witnesses, ground rules like 'correct me when I say something wrong' are established. Establishing these ground rules is required by guidelines, with the aim of enhancing the reliability of children's testimonies. In this article, we use conversation analysis to examine how ground rules are practiced in thirty-eight Dutch police interviews with child witnesses. We focus on the police officers' use of test questions to practice such ground rules. We found that, often, these questions (at first) only consist of an if-clause. Questions with this format leave open whose turn it is and what the appropriate response should be. If-clause questions allow flexibility in the difficulty of the test question, and a subtle pursuit of a response from the child. Yet, they are also treated as problematic by children, shown by silences and hesitations. Surprisingly, the practicing of ground rules sometimes occasions affiliation. (Police interviews, children, testing, practicing, affiliation, conversation analysis, hypothetical questions

Common ground · Conversation · Conversation analysis · Flexibility (engineering) · Test (biology) · Communication · Discourse Analysis in Language Studies · Interpreting and Communication in Healthcare · Language, Discourse, Communication Strategies · Psychology · Social Psychology

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