Politeness strategies in legal discourse an analysis of cross-examinations at the Winneba District Court

Abstract

The present study investigated the politeness strategies in legal discourse through an analysis of cross-examinations conducted at the Winneba District Court. The study is qualitative, and used document as the data collection method because the data were obtained from some selected record of proceedings on cross-examination sessions from 2020-2022 at the Winneba District Court. The study is guided by the Politeness Theory and Speech Acts Theory. Utterances from the cross-examinations is gathered as data. The researcher analyzed the utterances of all the cross-examiners and the crossexaminees, and then classified them into politeness strategy themes such as bald onrecord politeness, positive politeness, negative politeness, and off-record politeness. The four themes were further put into sub-themes such as deference, seek agreement, hedging, apology, request, assert a common ground, among others. The study indicates that the politeness strategy mostly used is positive politeness, and this is followed by negative politeness, bald on-record, and finally, off-record politeness. The findings suggest that it is necessary for cross-examiners and cross-examinees; whether professional or non-professional to use politeness strategies in order to as much as possible avoid threatening the face of others they communicate with. The findings contribute to the understanding of how politeness operates within the context of legal discourse and have implications for legal practice, courtroom communication, and politeness theory.