The institutional relevance of emotion: moral nexus effects in the courtroom

CARRANZA, ISOLDA E.; LAURA ALBA JUEZ; MICHAEL HAUGH

The sociopragmatics of emotion

Cambridge

Lugar: Londres; Año: 2023;

This chapter investigates talk by institutional representatives about the subordinate, non-institutional participants’ emotions or feelings, centrally, love and grief. The audio and audiovisual data come from numerous criminal trials which were observed ethnographically by the researcher. The analysis focuses on prosecutors’ talk during cross-examination and closing arguments. It is found that metapragmatic commentary about witnesses’ and defendants’ emotion or its absence evaluates its appropriateness, while commentary on emotive behaviour displayed in front of co-present participants evaluates its authenticity. The diverse unaddressed, ratified recipients are one key factor to understand the institutional member’s evaluations. The observed metapragmatic work is meant to shape some important co-participants’ interpretation of a certain specific piece of information. Evaluating someone’s emotions has an impact on how that individual’s credibility is assessed. This leads to a more crucial finding: a resource for the prosecutors’ actions is the saliency of the information, emotion and moral order conjunction, which will be called ‘moral nexus’. Cultural scripts of appropriate behaviour make moral criteria available to be applied in evaluating others’ behaviour and emotional life. Therefore, a salient ‘moral nexus’ –linking information, emotion and moral order– enables prosecutors to articulate an epistemic-affective-moral stance towards the subordinate participant’s statements. (At this stage, the ISBN stated above is fictitious)