Abstract
A police interrogation is goal-oriented, conventionalized with repeated and distinctive features of institutional discourse that arise from its communicative purpose as identified by police officers of the professional community. In China, the written notes of police interrogations are indispensable documents in the prosecution process and are presented as evidential confessions. By comparing the two versions of police interrogations – the written notes and the oral interrogation, that is, the tape-recordings, the paper finds that the written notes do not accurately reflect the whole question-and-answer process. Based on the concept of genre and taking oral police interrogation as a genre in legal settings, this present study regards the written notes as a transgenre, a body of translated legal documents that do not fully comply with textual conventions of either the source or the target text. The present study examines the generic structure and lexical-grammar features of the written notes and the tape-recordings to unravel the transfer inside the genre of police interrogations. From the perspective of semiotics, the paper explores the constraints of other sign systems, such as law, professional culture, and socio-culture on transgenre in police investigative settings.
About the authors
Ning Ye (b. 1975) is an associate professor of Zhejiang Police College 〈staryening@163.com〉. Her research interests include language and law, and English for Specific Purposes with a particular focus on policing and discourse analysis. Her publications include “Development of English teaching materials in Chinese higher education” (2010); “Identity construction in police interrogations” (with J. Pang, 2012); “Investigative language: A semiotic interpretation” (2012); and “Forensic linguistics in China” (with J. Li, 2012).
Jixian Pang (b. 1953) is a professor at Zhejiang University 〈pjx2001@zju.edu.cn〉. His research interests include discourse analysis, English for Specific Purposes, and research methods in linguistics. His publications include “Research on good and poor reader characteristics: Implications for L2 reading research in China” (2008); “Generic awareness in writing up research” (with X. Li, 2009); “A comparative analysis of genre theories” (with N. Ye, 2011); “Form versus meaning: Writing for publication in international journals” (with M. Cheng, 2011).
Jian Li (b. 1978) is a Research Fellow at Zhejiang University and Senior Research Associate at City University of Hong Kong 〈jianjian_le@hotmail.com〉. Her research interests include forensic linguistics and phonetics, and legal discourse. Her publications include “A temporal investigation of the nasals and vowel nasalization in Standard Chinese” (2010); “Court interpretation: Linguistic realization of ‘equality of arms’” (with H. Zhou, 2011); “Knowledge management in court adjudication” (with L. Cheng, 2012); and “Meaning as a corpus-based reconstruction” (with L. Cheng, 2013).
©2014 by Walter de Gruyter Berlin/Boston
