Genre and Institution: Narrative temporality in final arguments.

CARRANZA, ISOLDA E.

Narrative Inquiry

John Benjamins

Lugar: Amsterdam / New York; Año: 2003 vol. 13 p. 41 - 41

1053-6981

arrative data from criminal trials in Spanish display the following distinguishing features: a) The narrated events that are categorically found in final arguments are not the allegedly criminal actions but the witnesses? testimonies in the preceding days of the trial. The former actions tend to be organized into a story only in the prosecutor?s texts. b) Personalization through abundant use of first person singular form (or its third person singular substitute) characterizes this institutional genre. Temporal progression is weakened as a result of the combined effect of direct discourse (?scene? tempo), historical present (intemporality), nominalizations (actions as events), past participle constructions (actions as states), gerunds (simultaneity), past subjunctives as well as description sections and pauses in narrative action. Identification of the configuration of the final argument genre and consideration of production and reception conditions in the courts observed t