So…?: Pragmatic Implications of So-Prefaced Questions in Formal Police Interviews

Abstract

In recent years there has been great interest in the linguistic study of interactional processes in occupational and institutional settings. In addition to early important studies of classroom interaction (Sinclair and Coulthard, 1975) and therapeutic discourse (Labov and Fanshel, 1977), Drew and Heritage (1992) and Dillon (1990) have considered interaction in the professions of the media, medicine and employment, focusing on the importance of questioning across a range of contexts. In the forensic domain, Walker (1994) and Aldridge and Wood (1998) devote major attention to questioning strategies with children in criminal cases, from both linguistic and developmental perspectives.