Abstract
Communication between probation officers and juvenile offenders is essential, clarifying the nature and cause of possible disorders and providing insight into the chances of recidivism and/or recovery. Forensic social work, however, is complicated as it is both oriented toward collecting information for the court (forensic aims) and aimed at helping the juvenile’s improvement (social work aims). This paper examines two unique cases of probation officer-juvenile interaction that utilize a board game intended to foster disclosure. As any disclosure may be used against the juvenile in court, the juvenile must be compliant enough without disclosing too much. Using a combination of frame analysis and discourse analyses of delicacy, we describe how the game is used to encourage disclosure as well as how the game allows juveniles to appear compliant ultimately without disclosing much personal information.
About the authors
Maureen T. Matarese is an Associate Professor of Academic Literacy and Linguistics at BMCC, City University of New York and specializes in the analysis of institutional, street-level practitioner-client interaction in social work, policing and education. She has published in Discourse Processes, the Journal of Applied Linguistics and Professional Practice, British Journal of Social Work, and Child and Family Social Work and is a co-editor of and co-contributor to the book Analysing Social Work Communication: Discourse in Practice (2014, Routledge). Address for correspondence: BMCC, City University of New York, USA. Email: mmatarese@bmcc.cuny.edu
Carol van Nijnatten was educated as a developmental psychologist at Utrecht University. After a short career in child welfare, he works in the Department of Interdisciplinary Social Sciences at Utrecht University. He regularly publishes in Dutch and English and is co-editor and contributor to Analysing Social Work Communication: Discourse in Practice (2014, Routledge). His other publications include Children’s Agency, Children’s Welfare. A Dialogical Approach to Child Development, Policy and Practice (2010, Policy Press). Address for correspondence: Faculty of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Universiteit Utrecht, 3584CS Utrecht, The Netherlands. Email: C.H.C.J.vanNijnatten@uu.nl
Appendix
Transcription Conventions (Hutchby and Wooffitt 2008)
- (1.8)
Pause. The number represents duration of the pause in seconds, to one decimal place. A pause of less than 0.2 seconds is marked by (.)
- [ ]
Overlap with a portion of another speaker’s utterance.
- =
Latch: no time lapse between two utterances, used when a second speaker begins their utterance just at the moment when the first speaker finishes
- ::
Extended sound
- (hm, hh)
Onomatopoetic representations of the audible exhalation of air)
- .hh
Audible inhalation of ai. The more h’s, the longer the in-breath.
- ?
Rising intonation.
- .
Falling intonation.
- ,
Continuation of tone.
- -
Arupt cut off, speaker stops speaking suddenly.
- ↑↓
Sharply rising or falling intonation. The arrow is placed just before the syllable in which the change in intonation occurs.
- Under
Speaker emphasis on the underlined portion of the word.
- CAPS
Higher volume than the speaker’s normal volume.
- °
Utterance is much softer than the normal speech of the speaker. This symbol will appear at the beginning and at the end of the utterance in question.
- > <, < >
Noticeably faster (>faster talk<), or slower (<slower talk>) than the surrounding talk.
- (would)
Transcriber has guessed as to what was said, because it was indecipherable on the tape. If the transcriber was unable to guess what was said, nothing appears within the parentheses.
- (XXXX)
Indistinguishable speech
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