The multiplicity of self of capital trial lawyers

Abstract

Chaemsaithong, Krisda. 2021. The multiplicity of self of capital trial lawyers. Korean Journal of English Language and Linguistics 21, 359-374. Underpinned by Goffman’s concept of footing (1981), this study focuses on deconstructing the kinds of performance in which capital trial lawyers are engaged, when persuading the jurors to kill or spare the defendant on trial. Indexical cues are identified that instantiate the shifts into different speaking roles. The findings suggest that this genre is in fact highly complex and encompasses three layered speaking selves: storyteller, interlocutor, and animator, each of which is foregrounded at different relevant points. In effect, lawyers can emphasize favorable “facts” while silencing others through selective storytelling, fill in evidentiary gaps with inferences, guide the jurors’ interpretation as their active interlocutor, and endorse or invalidate an argument through quotations.