Although communication accommodation theory (CAT) has many of its roots in the ethnolinguistic realm, the tendrils of the theory have expanded into a variety of applied contexts, and especially so over the last two decades (Soliz & Giles, Reference Dragojevic, Giles and Berger2014; see also, Chapter 4). One such potent setting – that of healthcare – was discussed in the prior chapter. In this chapter, we introduce additional contexts central to our everyday lives. All of us – either in our professional and personal spheres – are intimately tied to organizations and the behaviors and views of organizational members reflect the larger organizational culture that is constituted in the everyday interactions and communication of the organization. Thus, we begin this chapter with a synthesis of research on accommodation in organizational contexts. In the remainder of it, we turn our attention to the legal arena, manifest here primarily in policing (i.e., police-civilian interactions) and courtroom discourses. We bring these contexts together in this chapter given the impact and practical consequences on individuals (e.g., layoffs, job and life satisfaction, conviction, or discharge, etc.), which can include, in the legal setting, life and death implications.
CAT and Organizations
The success and vitality of organizations are dependent, largely or in part, on the manner in which members feel a sense of affiliation, pride, and connectedness with the organization (Ashforth & Mael, Reference Ashforth and Mael1989), and these perceptions are clearly linked with the communication from organizational hierarchies and between organizational members (Morton, Wright, Peters, Reynolds, & Haslam, Reference Morton, Wright, Peters, Reynolds, Haslam and Giles2012). A great deal of research has focused on the link between communication and organizational lives and many of the tenets of CAT are reflected in this research, even if not explicitly stated. For instance, barriers in work-life can be transcended by (re)conceptualizing the organizational context as a common ingroup as opposed to separate work-groups, organizational hierarchies (e.g., manager-subordinate relations), or other social collectives (Gaertner et al., Reference Gaertner, Dovidio, Nier, Banker, Ward, Houlette, Loux, Capozza and Brown2000), and accommodating collaboratively toward that end accordingly (see Chapter 7). Of course, this can only be accomplished through both macro (i.e., organizational level) and micro (i.e., individual organizational members) processes. More specifically, accommodative communication is key to creating the inclusive organizational identity, relational satisfaction among members, and productive communication central to organizational success. Indeed, ineffective workplace communication between, for example, managers and their subordinates – as manifest in nonaccommodative stances (see Chapter 5) – may lead to organizational incivility, lower productivity, and employee turn-over (see Ng & Sorensen, Reference Ng and Sorensen2008).
Research on organization communication guided by CAT has focused primarily on group-based boundaries and markers. Boggs and Giles (Reference Boggs and Giles1999), for instance, demonstrate how the patriarchal nature of organizations is often constituted in the interaction within and between genders. Nonaccommodative communication may serve to both demean women in the workplace (via patronizing interactions) as well as reify a masculine culture by maintaining a communicative environment not inclusive to women in the workplace (i.e., an underaccomodative move). This work demonstrates how motives for the style of interactions may be related to desire for affiliation or distinctions (such as race-ethnicity, social class, gender, and sexuality) based on larger social-cultural context that pervade the organizational structure. Yet, these distinctions can also represent working groups within organizations (e.g., sales team vs. production team) and potential hierarchies within the organizational structure.
As an example, Gardner and Jones (Reference Gardner and Jones1999) focused on the role of communication in superior–subordinate relations identifying different workplace goals that must be overcome through (perceived) appropriate communication based on the role of the worker. Perhaps most interesting in this study is that appropriate communication (i.e., accommodation) is often tied to task-oriented perceptions and processes whereas nonaccomodative behaviors are often internalized to the individual level, thereby magnifying individual and group-based differences in the organization. Work by Hewett, Watson, and Gallois (Reference Hewett, Watson, Gallois, Candlin and Crichton2013) in the health field (see Chapter 8) shows how accommodation is also key to inter-specialty collaboration and cooperation in the workplace environment.
Focusing on workplace identities and roles, Willemyns, Gallois, and Callan (Reference Willemyns, Gallois and Callan2009) investigated how organizational hierarchies and social roles and expectations (e.g., gender) interact to uncover different perceptions and communication in the workplace (see also Chapter 6). Female managers, for instance, are simultaneously perceived as more accommodating in general interactions yet perceived as less so (compared to male counterparts) when workplace encounters are more negative (Rogerson, Reference Rogerson2015). Shifting from gender to cultural distinctions, McCann and Giles (Reference McCann and Giles2006, Reference McCann and Giles2007) conducted a series of cross-cultural inquires into the workplace finding that, as might be expected, organizations are not immune from the intergroup dynamics in the larger context. Here, both American and Thai workers perceived older co-workers as less accommodative toward the younger counterparts while also recognizing that younger workers are more deferential (i.e., respectfully avoidant) to the older workers (McCann & Giles, Reference McCann and Giles2007).
Somewhat similar findings emerged in research on American and Thai bankers in that both age-group distinctions and organizational roles (e.g., manager vs. non-manager) influenced the nature of communication. Younger workers were more respectfully avoidant to older managers, even though they are perceived as less accommodating to younger workers not in managerial roles (McCann & Giles, Reference McCann and Giles2006). Although only minor cultural differences were found in this study, the variation in accommodative styles across cultures should be taken into account when considering organizations that span national and cultural boundaries. For instance, Ayoko, Hartel and Callan (Reference Ayoko, Hartel and Callan2002) demonstrate how important appropriate accommodation (via proper discourse management, minimal interruptions in conversations, respectful communication) is to transcending differences, minimizing perceived exclusion, and enhancing constructive outcomes in cross cultural working groups.
As Rogers and Ashforth (Reference Rogers and Ashforth2014) argue, organizational identity reflects both larger collective identity (i.e., “we”) and the individual identities of the organizational members (i.e., “me”). From these inquiries, it is clear that, like other relational and social contexts, CAT has much to offer in understanding organizational dynamics reflective of collective and individual processes. Whereas most of this research has focused on communication within and between organizational domains, there are also opportunities for enhancing our understanding of organization-public communication as well as service encounters (Sparks, Reference Sparks1994). We now segue to specific contexts of the law and its enforcement, and the social relationships within them, where accommodative practices can be critical.
Enforcing the Law: The Role of Accommodative Practices
Although the social sciences have addressed policing from various perspectives (e.g., Heydon, Reference 189Heydon2005; Solan & Tiersma, Reference Solan and Tiersma2005; Tyler, Reference Tyler2006), only a few researchers had until recently explored the communicative dynamics of law enforcement-civilian encounters (see, however, Giles, Reference Giles2002; Gundersen & Hopper, Reference Gundersen and Hopper1984; Perlmutter, Reference Perlmutter2000). This may be surprising given estimates that about 97 per cent of American police work involves interacting with the public (Thompson, Reference Thompson1983), with communication being regarded as “the central most important commodity that the officer has at his [or her] disposal” (Womack & Finley, Reference Womack and Finley1986, p. 14). However, attention to this topic has mushroomed in recent years, and, arguably, is timely in light of the many contested police shootings of civilians in the USA (e.g., in Ferguson, Missouri) since 2013 that has drawn widespread public attention and outcry (see Clay, Reference Clay2015; Vick, Reference Vick2015).
Hence, in this section and before moving into the courtroom context, we overview studies investigating police-civilian encounters from a CAT perspective. Toward this end, the role of perceived accommodation in forging attitudes toward law enforcement is explored. Thereafter, we examine features of accommodation–nonaccommodation between officers and drivers in traffic stops – an event over 80 per cent of Americans at least have encountered (see Langton & Durose, Reference Langton and Durose2013), and is the occasion when the public most comes face-to-face with officers (e.g., Tyler, Reference 191Tyler2001; Cox & White, Reference Cox and White1988). Finally, implications for police training and public education are articulated.
Attitudes toward Law Enforcement
Attitudes toward police (ATP) officers – manifest in terms of positive-negative valence, trust-mistrust, and high-low confidence in law enforcement – can be traced to multiple sources (Tyler, Reference Tyler2006). Whereas 35 per cent of respondents in Los Angeles believed that the mass media held the greatest influence on their opinions of local law enforcement (for reviews of media depictions, see Choi & Giles, Reference Choi, Giles and Giles2012; Perlmutter, Reference Perlmutter2000), 65 per cent believed their personal experiences (or those vicariously reported by significant others) were the most influential factor (Hennigan, Maxson, Sloane, & Ranney, Reference Hennigan, Maxon, Sloane and Ranney2002). Many studies have pointed to socio-demographic factors predicting judgments about police. In the United States for example, older, female, urban, better educated, higher-income, married, and Caucasian respondents manifest more positive views of law enforcement than their social counterparts (e.g., Olsen, Reference Olsen2005). But of all such factors, civilians’ race has always been a strong predictor of ATP; Caucasians and Asians have the most favorable images, followed by Latinos and Native Americans and, finally, African Americans.
Although it is difficult to generalize, as ATP studies are conducted with different communities at different times and with different instruments, many groups of civilians (as earlier) hold negative images of local enforcement, and experience problematic communication with these agencies; others also harbor mixed-feelings about police being construed and in ways that can be characterized as “revered and despised” (Molloy & Giles, Reference Molloy, Giles, Glenn, LeBaron and Mandelbaum2002). Negative views can seriously impede the public’s willingness to cooperate and comply with law enforcement directives and investigations as well as their reluctance to support community policing endeavors (see Molloy & Giles, Reference Molloy, Giles, Glenn, LeBaron and Mandelbaum2002). Indeed, many African Americans and Latinos contend that they are over-stopped, over-searched and over-arrested, with many of the former complaining of being pulled over simply for “driving while black” (Tomaskovic-Devey, Mason, & Zingraff, Reference Tomaskovic-Devey, Mason and Zingraff2004).
In line with data suggesting that communication issues (e.g., disrespect, expressed bad attitude) account for most complaints the public have with law enforcement, as well as this being the nexus of factors they would wish to see improved, Giles et al. (Reference Giles, Fortman, Dailey, Barker, Hajek, Anderson, Rule, Dailey and Le Poire2006) found that perceptions of how communicatively accommodating officers had been to informants in the past was a more potent predictor of their evaluations than age, gender, or ethnicity. Relatedly, in a series of other investigations around the world (from Mongolia to Bulgaria), Giles and associates found that perceived officer accommodativeness (e.g., listening, taking the civilian’s perspective into account) promoted feelings of public trust (Tyler & Huo, Reference Tyler and Huo2002) which, in turn, increased civilians’ reported willingness to comply and cooperate with law enforcement (e.g., Giles et al., Reference Giles, Hajek, Barker, Chen, Zhang, Hummert, Anderson, Weatherall, Watson and Gallois2007; Hajek et al., Reference Hajek, Barker, Giles, Louw, Pecchioni, Makoni and Myers2006, Reference Hajek, Giles, Barker, Demirtas-Madran, Pecchioni and Choi2008). Given that police officers around the world, differ dramatically not only in demeanor, but also in levels of corruption, abuses of power, and thresholds for the use of force, there is, predictably, wide variation in officer’s perceived accommodativeness between nations (see Barker et al., Reference Barker, Giles, Hajek, Ota, Noels, Lim and Somera2008).
Hence, police officers who are willing accommodate their behavior and take time to show kindness, understanding, consideration, and avoid legal jargon and overly suspicious inclinations (Stroshine, Alpert, & Dunham, Reference Stroshine, Alpert and Dunham2008) when interacting with others will likely foster more positive reactions resulting in a greater likelihood of cooperation and satisfaction (see Glauser & Tullar, Reference Glauser and Tullar1985). In contrast and from vignette studies (Giles, Zwang-Weissman, & Hajek, Reference Giles, Zwang-Weissman and Hajek2004), it has been found that officers who are perceived as nonaccommodating to suspects – for example, adopting patronizing talk (see Chapter 5) – are viewed less competently and as more hostile than when talking in a non-patronizing manner. Such outcomes are mediated by negative attributions of the officer as being as threatening, offensive, and arrogant, and this being the case irrespective of the severity of the violation at hand (Myers, Giles, Reid, & Nabi, Reference Myers, Giles, Reid and Nabi2008).
Accommodation/Nonaccommodation at Work and on the Street
Dialogic analyses of ongoing interactions in policing have focused on police interrogations (e.g., Antaki, Richardson, Stokoe, & Willmott, Reference Antaki, Richardson, Stokoe and Willmott2015; Oxburgh, Mykebust, Grant, & Milne, Reference 190Oxburgh, Myklebust, Grant and Milne2015; Shuy, Reference Shuy1998; Yoong, Reference Yoong2010). For example, a recent study paying lip service to CAT showed language style matching (see Chapter 2) of interrogators to suspects in situations where a confession ultimately emerged (Richardson, Taylor, Snook, Conchie, & Bennell, Reference Richardson, Taylor, Snook, Conchie and Bennell2014). Interestingly, in interrogations where confessions did not occur, the latter accommodated to the former. But actual analyses of ongoing interactions with officers in the field are much rarer (for the language of homicide confessions, see Bozeman, Reference Bozeman2014). As a means toward filling this void in a midwestern city having a history of conflict with law enforcement Dixon, Schell, Giles, and Drogos (Reference Dixon, Schell, Giles and Drogos2008) analyzed the content of a large and representative sample of video-recorded traffic stops between African American and white police officers on the one hand, and African American and white civilians on the other. Trained coders examined each stop for more than hundred contextual and officer-driver variables.
Among other interracial patterns noted, African American drivers were more likely than white drivers to experience what was labeled “extensive policing” (for a related distinction between “soft versus hard” policing tactics, see Innes, Reference Innes2005). Here, African American drivers were detained for an average of 2.6 minutes longer than white drivers, with typically more than one police officer present. In addition, they were between three-to-five times more likely than white drivers to be asked to leave the vehicle, asked if they were carrying drugs or weapons, and have themselves, their passengers, and/or their vehicles searched for illegal items. For their part, African American drivers were coded as more nonaccommodative than whites: less apologetic, courteous, and respectful, and more belligerent. While each party’s accommodativeness predicted the other’s behavior, intergroup encounters were coded as more nonaccommodative than those where both driver and officer were of similar ethnic backgrounds (see Chapter 7). The interracial communication climate was found to be characterized by officers listening less, being more indifferent and dismissive, and coded as less approachable, respectful and polite than intra-racial traffic stops (for a conversational analysis of prototypical accommodative and nonaccommodative stops found in these data, see Chapter 6). In a follow-up and unpublished study with a wider sample of videotaped traffic stops sampled a year later, these scholars also found strong evidence of an interaction effect between officers’ and drivers’ race not evident in the previous data. More specifically, white officers engaged in more extensive policing (i.e., vehicle searches and longer stops) with African American drivers, a pattern that was not evident when African American officers stopped white drivers.
The question then arises as to whether such findings would generalize to other ethnic minorities, such as Latinos (see Hammer & Rogan, Reference Hammer and Rogan2002), in another quite different locale in the USA. As above, this group has generally unfavorable views of law enforcement (e.g., Huo & Tyler, Reference Huo and Tyler2000). Giles, Linz, Bonilla, and Gomez (Reference Giles, Linz, Bonilla and Gomez2012) analyzed the content of video-recorded stops of Latino and non-Latino white male drivers with non-Latino white male officers. Ethnic identities were evaluated primarily by surname and accent to provide indicators of Latino or Non-Latino origins. As would be predicted by CAT (see Chapter 3), officers accommodated more with more accommodative drivers and nonaccommodated more with drivers that were more dismissive. But unlike the Dixon et al. (Reference Dixon, Schell, Giles and Drogos2008) study, a police supervisor screened the video-recordings before passing them on to the investigators. Nonetheless, Latinos were accommodated to less by officers than their non-Latino counterparts. Heavily Hispanic-accented drivers were also coded as recipients of more extensive policing than other drivers, and were also accommodated to less by officers. Hence, even with pre-screening, once again, driver ethnicity – and, this time, accentedness (see Giles & Watson, Reference Giles and Watson2013) – emerged as critical elements of a traffic stop.
Applied Implications
Traffic stops are those occasions where the public connects with law enforcement the most on a face-to-face basis; for a heuristic pathway model of this encounter, including its antecedents and broader outcomes, see Choi and Giles (Reference Choi, Giles and Giles2012). As such, they can have important consequences for shaping attitudes toward law enforcement (Langan, Greenfeld, Smith, Durose, & Levin, Reference Langan, Greenfeld, Smith, Durose and Levin2001), images that can be vigorously communicated to others in their social networks and across the community (Rosenbaum, Schuck, Costello, Hawkins, & Ring, Reference Rosenbaum, Schuck, Costello, Hawkins and Ring2005). All this notwithstanding, CAT contends that nonaccommodation may not always hinge on situations being inherently construed as hostile and, indeed, may be strategically beneficial as in, for example, slowing down a fast-talker to a more comprehensible level (Street & Giles, Reference Street, Giles, Roloff and Berger1982). But all this presents a paradox for officers. Traffic stops are known, by police officers, as being amongst the most dangerous situations they can encounter with members of the public. Hence, so-called routine traffic stops have now been re-designated as “indeterminate risk” stops. Officers are “on their guard” – even under the most mundane circumstances – and are trained to be self-protective and to resist temptations toward complacency and vulnerability; officer accommodativeness is not, therefore, a “natural” communicative strategy in this situation.
Indeed, resistance to accommodativeness might be accentuated when encountering members of a social category that have more stigmatic associations with crime than others (Dixon, Reference Dixon2006). This is compounded further given that accommodative officers are the ones most liable to be victims of lethal force from members of the public in traffic stops. In this regard, and from interviews with victims’ peers and supervisors, slain officers are often described as “friendly to everyone, well-liked … and tend to look for ‘good’ in others” (Pinizzotto, Davis, & Miller, Reference Pinizzotto, Davis and Miller1997, p. 12). In general, officers are aware of these data and, doubtless, many have such a schema activated in when approaching drivers.
Interpersonal accommodation is, thereby, a two-edged sword: it can induce civilian trust, but could compromise officer safety through complacency and accommodativeness. When civilians perceive a defensive or nonaccommodative demeanor, and especially when it is combined with the distancing effects of a military hairstyle (Giles et al., Reference Giles, Zwang-Weissman and Hajek2004) and military gear and equipment (Pickler, Reference Pickler2015), they can easily and quickly misinterpret the motives and behavior of police officers and feel unjustly treated, contributing yet further to their negative images of law enforcement; for a CAT perspective on racial profiling, (see Giles, Choi, and Dixon, Reference Giles, Choi, Dixon, Giles, Reid and Harwood2010). The communicative dilemma is, then, for officers in ambiguously risky situations to enact a balance of accommodativeness and nonaccommodativeness. Another dilemma resides in how to optimally train civilian instructors of police officers in communication skills – a potentially intergroup encounter – to be accommodative of officers’ experiences and for them to appear highly credible and informationally valuable to law enforcement. For their part, too, civilians need to reappraise their emotions, cognitions, and talk when being traffic stopped (and/or elsewhere on the street). While the situation can be sometimes riddled with uncertainty about the cause of the stop and also be very anxiety-provoking (see Gudykunst, Reference Gudykunst and Wiseman1995), civilians (who are an unknown commodity to officers) should be advised to take the perspective of officers who likely might be viewing and reacting to this same situation quite differently. Moreover, adopting an accommodating stance is related to reciprocal accommodation by officers and sometimes to reduced personal and financial consequences.
Clearly this kind of applied and theoretically driven CAT research does have important implications for officer training. Indeed, the art of balancing accommodative and effective nonaccommodative strategies should, arguably, be part-and-parcel of police training; for existing communication programs, see Glennon (Reference 188Glennon2010) and Kidd & Braziel (Reference Kidd and Braziel1999). Relatedly, it should be important to focus upon ways in which officers can feel and keep control of circumstances without appearing hostile and nonaccommodative. Having officers themselves critically analyze accommodative and nonaccommodative exchanges as exemplified in Chapter 6 could put “flesh on the bones” of such training. As implied above, however, interventions should be bi-lateral as citizen education (e.g., in schools or for learner drivers) is sorely lacking in informing the public about the communicative demands and dilemmas placed on officers; for the empirical value of civilians’ simulated perspective-taking exercises of policing, see Giles, Willemyns, Gallois, & Anderson (Reference Giles, Willemyns, Gallois, Anderson and Fiedler2007). In this vein, Maria Haberfield (Professor and Chair of the Department of Law, Police Science, and Criminal Justice Administration at John Jay College) noted that “… we spend hours teaching children about Shakespeare and history, but we don’t devote even an hour a week to the role of police in creating the world in which we live” (pers. comm., 6/30/2011).
In sum, many scholars and police practitioners recognize police-civilian cooperation as fundamental to crime prevention and, for effective policing to succeed, it is imperative that it be understood as the responsibility of both law enforcement and the community and that intergroup between them dissipate; for a community policing program that tries to bridge these divides, see Revoyr (Reference Revoyr2015). With that said, it is the continued study of accommodation that will further what we have come to understand of the police officers experiences and communicative practices as well as the public in general including stigmatized minority groups and other social categories, such as adolescents (see Drury, Reference 187Drury, Giles, Reid and Harwood2010).
In the remainder of this chapter, we discuss the accommodative-nonaccommodative climates that can permeate courtroom exchanges; in other words, the legal portion of what occurs after officers have arrested suspects. Interestingly, even after a clear-cut and legitimate arrest of a known felon, officers are well aware that while their job has skillfully (and sometimes courageously) been done, it can often be undone in this next setting (Osborne, Reference Osborne2015). Hence, we will describe the accommodative strategies studied first in prosecutor–defendant, then in legal professional–witness examinations. Finally, we will describe the effects in terms of attribution of guilty of a suspect who during an interview converge or diverge.
The Addressees of Accommodative Strategies in the Courtroom
Although the discourse between legal professionals (e.g., lawyer or prosecutor) and examinees (e.g., defendant or witness) during criminal trials is the most known and studied activity in this applied sphere, in reality, there are multiple legal contexts (e.g., courtroom, lawyer–client conversation) and many different kinds of courts (e.g., civil, criminal, administrative, juvenile, small claims court). Moreover, different activities can be realized in each context and even during the criminal trial, as voir dire, opening arguments, confrontation, summation, and so forth, each one with its goals, rules and roles. As well, even during the same activity (e.g., a cross-examination), many different goals can be accomplished (e.g., direct and indirect cross-examination, interventions by the judge or legal jurors, objections, and claims).
Each of these may see different accommodative strategies at play and, therefore, talking of accommodative strategies in any generic legal setting can be misleading. Nonetheless, our effort here will consist of providing a general framework applicable to the many different communicative situations in different legal settings. For the sake of expediency, we focus mostly on talk between a prosecutor and a defendant during a criminal trial, even though many other actors (e.g., defendant, witness, defense lawyer, prosecutor, and judge) may accommodate each other; see Figure 9.1 for a schematic depiction of some these relationships.
Figure 9.1 Accommodative pathways in the courtroom
The arrows indicated the many possible addresses of a defendant’s CAT strategies during a cross-examination in a criminal trial in courtroom
The Prosecutor
Cross-examination consists of two phases. The defendant is, firstly, examined by the prosecutor, then by his/her defense lawyer. Therefore, the direct and obvious addressee of a defendant in an examination is, of course, the prosecuting or defending counsel. Consider the defendant-prosecutor arrow in Figure 9.1, which shows the accommodation strategies enacted by the defendant on the basis of the prosecutor’s specific behavior and features at an individual level (see Tajfel & Turner, Reference Tajfel, Turner, Worchel and Austin1986). Contrary to what might be expected in criminal trials, the defendant may address the prosecutor as a person, enacting more informal communication. For example, a co-defendant, in the well-known Italian trial against Cusani, pressed by too many inquisitive questions by the prosecutor, addresses him with the exclamation: “Figlio mio!” (literally “My son!”). This expression in Italian means, sarcastically, something like “What more do you want?!”, “What the hell do you want?!” (Gnisci & Pontecorvo, Reference Gnisci and Pontecorvo2004).
However, the defendant may accommodate to the prosecutor based on the social hierarchy and, thus, at the intergroup level (see Giles, Reference Giles, Linz, Bonilla and Gomez2012; also Chapter 7). Take the case, for example, of a male defendant who diverges from a female prosecutor because he construes her as a powerful woman (Gnisci, Scognamiglio, & Di Conza, Reference Gnisci, Scognamiglio and Di Conza2010). In the process of decoding each other’s behavior, they may perceive the other either as an individual or as a member of a social category (e.g., career woman, guilty felon; for a discussion of interpersonal versus intergroup encounters, see Dragojevic & Giles, Reference Dragojevic, Giles and Berger2014). In Figure 9.1, this is depicted by the dotted link between the defendant and the prosecutor moderated by the social category.
The Judge, the Court, and the Jury
Accommodative strategies in court may be indirectly addressed to other possible actors. At least in the western world where the adversarial Anglo-American model is widespread, the defendant may want to adjust his/her behavior to a third party, the Judge and/or the Court (see again Figure 9.1). These third-party actors exercise many different functions during examination (e.g., clarifying, informing, reformulating, asking information or clarification, reprimanding) and with respect to more general legal principles (e.g., monitoring the correctness of procedures, defending the rights of the defendant or the weaker people, emitting the verdict or sentence: Conley & O’Barr, Reference Conley and O’Barr1990; Gnisci & Di Conza, Reference Gnisci and Di Conza2012). The most decisive at the end of these proceedings is that these actors emit a verdict that will substantially change, in positive or in negative ways, the life course of the defendant. In sum, while accommodating to the prosecutor, time to time, as an individual or a member of an outgroup, the defendant may invoke accommodative strategies directed toward the Judge, the Court or the Jury, all of which in concern will ultimately decide his or her fortune.
Laws and Routines
The defendant may (and often must) accommodate language also to the trial phases (e.g., reading the charge, statements of facts, cross-examination, concluding speech; Linell, Reference Linell, Giles, Coupland and Coupland1991) as well as to the behavior expected, prescribed by rules and norms, procedures and routines for this setting (Drew & Heritage, Reference Drew and Heritage1992). They specify (at least) when, why and how, and who communicates with whom. Formality, asymmetry, rules, and roles, differences in status associated with particular linguistic acts (e.g., questions for legal professionals and answers for interviewees), expectations and interpretive norms, sequential alternations of turn are the features that identify interaction in legal contexts (Atkinson, Reference Atkinson, Drew and Heritage1992; Drew, Reference Drew, Drew and Heritage1992).
Audience
Often a multifaceted audience (the gallery) is present in the courtroom that may include members of the defendant’s ingroup (e.g., relatives, friends) and of the outgroup (e.g., relatives and friends of the alleged victim) as well as members of other outgroups (e.g., journalists, experts) and strangers (e.g., training students, legal practitioners, draftsmen, and curious visitors). In some legal systems (e.g., in Italy), cameras can be present in the court, making the hearing similar to a TV studio. This is probably an uncommon option for a defendant, but media can be a recipient of communication in themselves as well as a channel through which accommodative strategies with significant others outside the courtroom can be put into action. This happens particularly when the trial attracts media and public attention and the participants themselves are public figures (e.g., politicians, entrepreneurs, institution officials, and mafia exponents). For example, many well-known politicians and entrepreneurs called as co-defendant (as such not obliged to give testimony) in a publically memorable criminal trial in Italy in 1993–94, choose to testify in a late effort of saving or restoring their “face” (Gnisci & Pontecorvo, Reference Gnisci and Pontecorvo2004). They knew that their examination would be broadcast, in full or in part, within some weeks, by the TV program Un giorno in Pretura (“A day in Trial”). In this as in some others cases, the addressees of CAT strategies of the defendant are those that influence public opinion (dotted arrow in bottom right of Figure 9.1).
In sum, we understand courtroom discourse as a stratified, multilayered dynamic process in which convergence and divergence at different levels may occur in coordination with the many addressees available. The defendant copes with the somewhat difficult task of accommodating effectively to all of these entities. We focus next on legal examinations during criminal trials, because this is the arena in which CAT has been invoked the most.
A Microanalysis of Cross-Examinations during Criminal Trials: Accommodative Tactics
The first inquiry into legal examinations, to our knowledge, was Levin and Lin’s (Reference Levin and Lin1988) study on the strategies with which John Dean, the key witness against President Nixon in the Watergate case, converged to the level of formality of the language of his Senators during the Watergate Committee Hearings. In similar fashion, Neiderhoffer and Pennebaker (Reference Neiderhoffer and Pennebaker2002) studied official transcripts of the recordings of meetings between President Nixon and his collaborators before the Watergate scandal by means of numerous linguistic categories, including social and affect words (expressing positive and negative emotions) and cognitive words (expressing causation and certainty). They showed that markers of convergent behavior between the President and Dean transformed into markers of divergent behavior as their relationship deteriorated. This is an interesting study because it shows that the evolutions of CAT strategies in time may disclose how the quality of the relationship among people develops (see Chapter 6).
CAT and the Examination of the Defendants
A more integrated approach to CAT and courtroom cross-examinations was proposed on the basis of the Swedish Linköping corpus of courtroom discourse comprising forty criminal trials (Adelswärd, Aronsson, Jönsson, & Linell, Reference Adelswärd, Aronsson, Jönsson and Linell1987; Aronsson, Jönsson, & Linell, Reference Aronsson, Jönsson and Linell1987). In one of these studies, the authors investigated the complexity of information by legal professionals and defendants; that is the amount of substantive new content introduced at a determined moment (Aronsson et al., Reference Aronsson, Jönsson and Linell1987). They found different types of accommodation. First, the actors adjusted their discourse to the different phases of the trial (as earlier). Second, legal professionals converged to the interpersonal (i.e., real) behavior of the defendants in terms of information density and the frequency of hedges and amount of talk. Third, and during cross-examination, legal professionals and defendants showed accommodation strategies that attenuated many features of their distinctive communicative styles; respectively, less legalese and less criminal jargon, known as the hypothesis of the “hearing as a middle ground.”
Later, revisiting the same corpus data (Adelswärd et al., Reference Adelswärd, Aronsson, Jönsson and Linell1987), Linell (Reference Linell, Giles, Coupland and Coupland1991) found that legal professionals adapted differently to different categories of defendants in terms of types of questions (declarative, coercive, and interrogative) and other features of turn-taking. For instance, legal professionals accentuated a number of formal linguistic features associated with their role when facing a more serious offender. This was interpreted in intergroup terms: “If professionals know that defendants are more serious offenders, presumably they stereotypically categorize them as an outgroup that is quite distant from their own group” (Linell, Reference Linell, Giles, Coupland and Coupland1991, p. 120). In sum, the authors found accommodation strategies that reduced distance between legal professionals and defendants (based, for instance, on information complexity) as well as strategies that increased this distance.
CAT and the Examination of the Witnesses
CAT strategies were also observed in the examination of witnesses. For example, Gnisci (Reference Gnisci2005) and Gnisci & Bakeman (Reference Gnisci and Bakeman2007) studied forty-seven hostile examinations from a single criminal trial (the Cusani trial). Questions were coded for their coercion : how much the form of question constrained qualitatively and quantitatively the contents of the answer (respectively, declarations, yes/no questions, tag-questions, choice questions, wh-questions). Answers, however, were coded for their equivocation : how much the answer replied to the question (minimally, elaborating, evading, etc.). The authors took as an evidence of convergence on content aspects of turns when, for example, a non-equivocal answer was in reply to a coercive question (e.g., “Is this your bank account?” – “Yes, it is”). They talked of divergence when, in reply to the same question, a more equivocal answer was provided (e.g., the evasive, “Actually, I did not met the director of that bank”); here, the contents of the two adjacent turns actually diverged.
Turning to examining interpersonal control tactics and discourse management strategies in court (Coupland, Coupland, Giles, & Henwood, Reference Coupland, Coupland, Giles and Henwood1988; see Chapters 6 & 8), the manner in which legal professionals and witnesses took the floor (interrupting, synchronizing, and pausing) and the length of their turns were coded (Gnisci, Reference Gnisci2005). A quantitative, sequential approach was used to analyze associations among the coded data (Bakeman & Quera, Reference 186Bakeman and Quera2011; for a qualitative approach to sequential patterns in courtroom, see Atkinson & Drew, Reference Atkinson and Drew1979). All these analyses were refined in a later study of a more representative and heterogeneous sample of examinations (about eight times more in terms of duration and number of turns) from different courtrooms (Gnisci, Quera, Bakeman, Scognamiglio, & Di Conza; Reference Gnisci, Quera, Bakeman, Scognamiglio and Di Conza2009; Scognamiglio & Gnisci, Reference Scognamiglio and Gnisci2009). These examinations were less hostile because they included testifying of collaborators and police officers and included female interviewers and interviewees too (for gender issues, see Gnisci, Scognamiglio, & Di Conza, Reference Gnisci, Scognamiglio and Di Conza2010).
All in all, there was mutual convergence in the way the witnesses and the legal professionals took the floor. When the legal professionals (or the witnesses) interrupted, synchronized or paused taking the turn, in the next turn, the witnesses (or the legal professionals) interrupted, synchronized or paused (Gnisci & Bakeman, Reference Gnisci and Bakeman2007; Gnisci et al., Reference Gnisci, Quera, Bakeman, Scognamiglio and Di Conza2009). This pattern was also found for length of turns of answer and question. However, the witness accommodated to the legal professional more than the legal professional accommodated to the witness; and the latter used more accommodation strategies, whereas the legal professional used more maintenance strategies (Gnisci, Reference Gnisci2005). Nonetheless, many divergent strategies were found between legal professionals and witnesses. For example, in the sample of hostile examinations (Gnisci, Reference Gnisci2005), when answering, the witnesses were found diverging from the legal professionals in that the more coercive the question, the more equivocal the answer. Conversely, the legal professionals, when questioning diverged from the witnesses’ preceding answer in that the more equivocal the answer, the more coercive the subsequent question. In addition, when the contents of the witnesses’ answers diverged from the contents of the questions (a unimodal tactic), they also diverged from the way the legal professionals took the turn to ask the question (a bimodal tactic). For example, when the legal professionals interrupted the witness, the witnesses then equivocated, elaborating their answers or otherwise evading.
The above patterns were reversed in the less hostile examinations of the second sample (Di Conza, Gnisci, Scognamiglio, & Abbamonte, Reference Di Conza, Gnisci, Scognamiglio and Abbamonte2012). The witnesses’ answers converged with the legal professionals’ questions – the more coercive the question, the less equivocal the answer – and the legal professionals as well converged to the witness’s preceding answer; the less equivocal the answer, the less coercive the subsequent question. Whether hostile examinations encourage divergent tactics or whether the latter shape the labeling of the former is an intriguing issue to consider in future work. Another intriguing feature that arose from this body of research is that the study of CAT strategies in courtroom interaction should not be limited to contingent behaviors, because speakers can accommodate to earlier preceding, but not directly adjacent, behaviors. For example, while an answer can accommodate to the question just preceding the response, an answer can also accommodate to questions the legal professional asked in the prior turn to that (Gnisci et al., Reference Gnisci, Quera, Bakeman, Scognamiglio and Di Conza2009; Scognamiglio & Gnisci, Reference Scognamiglio and Gnisci2009). In general, witnesses accommodated to the three sequentially preceding turns and legal professional to the preceding, underscoring the value of studying “long term” and sequential patterns of mutual accommodation.
Strategies and Attributions of Guilt
Thus far, we have described the results of research on CAT in real legal settings. However, a couple of studies have been conducted in the laboratory to ascertain if accommodative strategies of a criminal suspect could affect attributions of guilt by naïve people. The first involved Welsh participants listening to an examination between a Welsh-accented suspected criminal either converging toward or diverging away from an English-accented police interviewer. Interestingly, the Welsh respondents rated the diverging suspect as less guilty than the converging counterpart (Bourhis, Reference Bourhis1977). Social identity was central to this pattern of evaluation (see Chapter 7; and Giles, Coupland, & Coupland, Reference Giles, Coupland, Coupland, Giles, Coupland and Coupland1991). Listeners attributed more guilt to people who betrayed ingroup solidarity by converging to the outgroup English speaker’s accent features. Similarly, in another study conducted in South-Africa, English-speaking participants listened to an Afrikaans-speaking suspect interviewed by an English-speaking interrogator (Dixon, Tredoux, Durrheim, & Foster, Reference Dixon, Tredoux, Durrheim and Foster2001). Depending on the experimental condition, the suspect was heard to: (a) converge, responding only in English; or (b) partially diverge, responding mainly in English, but lapsing into English in a turn; or (c) completely diverge, responding only in Afrikaans. Under these circumstances, the suspect who diverged was rated as more guilty than the ones who converged. Again, social identity can be invoked to explain this result as English people considered as a member of an outgroup are less guilty when they converged toward their language rather than diverged.
Few experimental studies have been conducted exploring the relationships between accommodative strategies and attribution of guilt or other interrogation outcomes (see e.g., Richardson et al., Reference Richardson, Taylor, Snook, Conchie and Bennell2014). Such studies could throw light on many uninvestigated phenomena (e.g., the effect of maintenance strategies and their difference from diverging ones) as well as explore the role of the strategies in determining the legal decision-making (e.g., the verdict), that ultimately is what affects the life of people involved in legal settings.
Conclusions
Cross-examinations in courtroom settings – at least in the cultures studied – have demonstrated to be an applied arena in which some basic CAT concepts and strategies have been put on trial. We have witnessed a complex pattern of adjustments and influences among multiple behaviors between prosecutor and defendant/witness that unfold sequentially over time. These include accommodations between proximal and distal behaviors and bimodal strategies, along with the presence of convergence and divergence. Some accommodative processes that involve defendants/witnesses and legal professionals are unidirectional, with the legal professional communicatively conveying the power associated to his/her role (Coupland et al., Reference Coupland, Coupland, Giles and Henwood1988). We have suggested that in this process, intergroup norms and procedures may be at play, featuring focally in attributions of guilt and innocence – a perspective worthy of further empirical scrutiny (Gallois & Callan, Reference Gallois and Callan1988). The simultaneous presence of different strategies or the shifts from a strategy to another during the examination should be more the focus of any CAT research in applied contexts.
One central player – whose accommodative and nonaccommodative acts have serious social and physical repercussions on the street – are police officers who (as discussed in the last section) can play a key role in the unfolding of events in the courtroom as well. For the first time here, research on policing and the courtroom have appeared side-by-side in one academic forum – and it is time for work in these separable domains to be meshed under the same investigative umbrella. Studying how the same officers – some more accommodative than others (see Chapter 6) – sequentially act in the field, manage other agencies (community and professional) in solving a problem or lending a hand, interrogate in the station, and thereafter appear in court would make a profound contribution to CAT, particularly if conducted longitudinally as officers, male and female (Bochantin & Cowan, Reference Bochantin and Cowan2008), gain experience and move up the ranks.
Whether we recognize it or not, our lives are series of organizational and legal encounters as manifest in the opening section of this chapter. There we showed CAT has had much to offer in understanding the interactional dynamics within and surrounding organizational culture and legal settings (for an analysis of police culture, see Hahn, Reference Hahn1971). More importantly, our communication has pragmatic implications for individuals, those in our intimate sphere, and our communities. We believe there is much opportunity for growth in the application of CAT to these contexts and, thus, the research and ideas synthesized in the preceding sections should serve a springboard for significant, applied research trajectories. For many, “organizational” connotes a professional (i.e., workplace) entity – and this is reflected in much of the CAT-based research in the organizational context. However, this is a somewhat limited view of “organizational” as it can also apply to non-work entities such as religious and social organizations that serve important roles in terms of senses of affiliation and belongingness. Moreover, “organizational” can also refer to the act of collective organizing. CAT has much to offer in terms of guiding these inquiries. For instance, in organizing for social change, how does accommodation (or lack thereof) minimize or amplify connections and working relations with local communities and non-profit entities?
