Abstract
Kurzon (Journal of Pragmatics 33: 61–85, 2001: 64) argues that the language of the courtroom is inherently polite due to the formal, high stakes context, but does this extend to all the institutional participants throughout trials? The linguistic politeness (and impoliteness) literature gives us a nuanced account of politeness activity (e. g., Culpeper, Journal of Pragmatics 25: 349–367, 1996; Harris, Discourse and Society 12: 451–472: 2001), including “expressive politeness” (Eelen, Pragmatics 9: 163–173, 1999) and “mock politeness” (Kienpointner, Journal of Politeness Research 4: 243–265, 2008: 249). We argue that any analysis of courtroom trial interaction needs to take account of the “multiple goals” (Penman, Facework and politeness: Multiple goals in courtroom discours, Multilingual Matters, 1990; Archer, Verbal aggression and impoliteness: Related or synonymous?, Mouton de Gruyter, 2008) of this “complex genre” (Heffer, The language of jury trial: A corpus-aided analysis of legallay discourse, Palgrave Macmillan, 2005) and, in doing so, we need to account for the inherently facethreatening nature of cross-examination. Drawing on Brown and Levinson's (Universals in language usage: Politeness phenomena, Cambridge University Press, 1978) notion of positive and negative face, we focus on how lawyers and witnesses use “politeness as a strategic act” and how they prioritize the “individual, creative aspects of politeness over the social aspects” (Christie, Journal of Politeness Research 3: 269–294, 2007: 263), to coerce, undermine and challenge. We use a corpus-based approach to investigate the case of the libel trial David Irving vs. Penguin Books Ltd and Deborah Lipstadt (2000). This paper examines direct and indirect impoliteness, arguing that pragmatic im/politeness strategies contribute to the style of the lawyer's defensive attack in cross-examination, one which employs both polite and impolite incivility.
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