Example PEE paragraphs for legal text involving Mr Neil

Plan for legal text involving Mr. Neil:

Introductions – context involving the circumstances:

-          Comment on how barrister seems to be interrogating the witness which is Mr Neil-  instead of Mr Peterson who apparently has committed the crime

-          Unequal encounters (Norman Fairclough)

-          Waerings power theories : Political – reflected in the formality of the text

-          Divergence is used to make them stand out from the public -No accents for typical Scottish

Barrister:  

-          Bald on record (politeness strategies)

-          Low frequency lexis to show his power status (this ill feeling, stemmed, incident)

-          Closed questions, even though they are supposed to be interrogative and he is meant to be asking him questions to find out the answers but they are declaratives

-          Instrumental power

-          Patronises Mr Neil – but deontic (degree of obligation to find out the answer) – use of interrogatives

-          Trying to gain influential power

Mr Neil:

-          Overlap a lot trying to save his face by laughing quietly

-          Flouted ‘quality’ and ‘quantity’ maxims – he isn’t giving away much detail

-          Barrister using face threatening acts when questioning Mr Neil

-          Reformation – not giving the information that’s needed

-          Doesn’t really know what to do- barrister knows

Because the barrister is a valued lawyer in the Scottish Court, he holds the most instrumental power against the witness (Mr Neil). Due to this unequal encounter (from the Norman Flairclough’s theory) the Barrister is interrogating the witness by using patronising techniques as well as deontic verbs to forcefully persuade him to answer his questions. Although the case takes place in a Scottish court- we see no sign of the typical Scottish accent- the barrister uses a more ‘upper class’ accent to show off his possibly higher educated background; unlike Mr Neil which uses a variety of conjunctions and fillers which show off his possibly less educated background. The idea of a hierarchy is shown a lot through this conversation, which could possibly effect the final judgment as the jury could be more likely to side with an experienced lawyer who knows what he is talking about rather than a man who is flouting the maxim of quality.

Eventhough the barrister holds the instrumental power he attempts to gain influential power from the jury as well as the public, to defend we assume Mr Peterson. He uses a low frequency lexis of words including “incident”, “stemmed” and “this ill feeling”, to emphasise his political power (Waering’s types of power theories) as well as possibly his high status being a lawyer. Throughout the conversation the barrister tries to patronise Mr Neil by his use of deontic interrogatives, he uses one of Browns and Levinson’s politeness strategies (bald on record), for example in “you put two and two together Mr Neil and made five”, his use of direct address in the pronoun ‘you’ makes it seem as if he is telling Mr Neil off, especially when he says his name, by saying “two and two together and made five” he is humiliating Mr Neil by mocking him and accusing him of making a mistake (which is overall increasing his instrumental  and influential power). He also uses closed questions, even though he is using interrogatives they are really cloaked declaratives- by accusing Mr Neil of committing this crime he is effectively putting ideas into the jury’s head and possibly influencing their overall decision.

Although Mr Neil tries his best to defend himself against this possibly higher educated man, by “(quietly laughing)”, this may have worked if it was just between him and the barrister but with the audience watching them he isn’t likely to gain much influential power; therefore the jury are more likely to agree with the barrister against Mr Neil mainly due to him flouting the maxims of ‘quality’ and ‘quantity’. Mr Neil also overlaps the Barrister frequently – this could be to try and gain some power from him especially when the barrister almost patronises him: “that didn’t cross your mind |at all?|” “|no|”.  Although it doesn’t say how Mr Neil answered the barrister he does make it clear that he’s annoyed by answering in the simple exclamation ‘no’; Mr Neil is showing that he is not to be patronised and succumb to any pressure that the barrister is having, however previously in the text the barrister commented on Mr Neil’s uncertainty of the question: “did the police come to see you?”, Mr Neil answered “no I can’t remember ‘em s-seeing me no” “you can’t remember whether they came to see you |or not?|” “|I don’t| think they did no”, here he succumbed to the barristers question and later on in the text as we saw he almost ‘learnt his lesson’ on how to answer one of the his questions. Mr Neil also uses the technique of reformation , by not telling him the answers the barrister needs it’s making us think that he isn’t to be trusted, moreover his use of fillers and stammers could be because of his nerves or his lack of knowledge of how to act in the Scottish Court. 

H/W due Friday 9th March - Using and explaining theory

Task: Explanation of a term or theory and use of a quote to explore how that term or theory allows us to say something interesting about the language used. Include the context and GAP.

The Unequal encounters is a theory made by Norman Flairclough, overall it tells us that in a conversation there will always be a more powerful, dominant participant. This can be anyone from friends to political people having an argument- society today either make it evident there is a power struggle or they subconsciously comment and make repercussions that can lead to an unequal encounter.  Some things that can be defined as an unequal encounter:

-          Opening and closings of conversations

-          Showing agreement or disagreement

-          Introducing bad news and how they tell it

-          Conversational repair

-          False starts

-          Adjacency pairs

-          Shifting a certain topic

-          How they turn take and speak to one another

Text between a teacher and a student:

Because this text is between a teacher and some students, the teacher holds the instrumental power although Alex challenges his/her authority throughout this encounter. By stating that it’s an unequal encounter it makes the audience assume that people will respect the teacher because she will automatically hold the most power, however what is evident in this text is that Alex is trying to gain the most power and present the teacher as being weaker, but when Alex challenges her by saying “what if I don’t answer?” the teacher replies “Is that a threat? Answer my question”, the powerful imperative ‘answer’ is declaring that Alex need to do what she says. She also uses the personal pronoun ‘my’ to show that he is the one that needs to answer his question and not the other way around; she doesn’t fall into his trap of answering his question instead of him answering her- still making her hold the most power between the two of them. Although we know by the stage direction: “Smiles” that Alex is only jokingly challenging her to see what she would do, the teachers stage direction “(half jokingly)” makes the audience imagine her saying it in a possibly harsher and louder voice- which is what could make Alex’s reply  undermine himself by saying “I don’t know I mean”.