Abstract
Throughout a police interrogation, the identities of police interrogators and suspects are not fixed as simple questioners and answerers, but are dynamic with the changing communicative purposes in an interrogation process. At the opening and closing stages, the identities of interrogators are largely those of spokespeople and attentive listeners. At the information gathering stage, while the suspects are expected to ideally assume three simultaneous identities of animator, author, and principal, the identities of interrogators are more complicated when the interrogators attempt to construct an ideal interrogation pattern with an aim to show the voluntary nature of the suspect’s confession. The identities the police interrogators attempt to construct include an institutional representative, a responsible professional, a fact verifier/lie detector, and a dominant professional. The shifting identities and positionalities of police interrogators and suspects are part of a delicate dance in an interrogation process, which will determine the effectiveness of an interrogation. The identity construction process this paper describes helps create patterns of interaction. The paper argues that the police’s keen awareness of their identity construction in the interrogation will facilitate the achievement of their intended interrogative purposes.
Funding statement: Funding: The work reported in this paper is supported by the National Social Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 13BYY157) and the Postdoctoral Project at Zhejiang University.
Acknowledgements
We are grateful to Professor Le Cheng from Zhejiang University, China, for his invaluable suggestions and help during the process of writing this paper.
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