Page 314 - Handbooks of Applied Linguistics Communication Competence Language and Communication Problems Practical Solutions

292 Diana Eades

3. DC1: You knew that, Mr (1.2) Coley I’d suggest to you, PLEASE DO NOT
LIE.YOU KNEW THAT YOU DIDN’T HAVE TO GO ANYWHERE if you
didn’t want to, didn’t you? (2.2) DIDN’T YOU? (2.2) DIDN’T YOU,
MR COLEY?
4. BARRY: (1.3) Yeh.

5. DC1: WHY DID YOU JUST LIE TO ME? WHY DID YOU JUST SAY “NO” MR
COLEY?

Another factor which appears to lead to gratuitous concurrence is the asking of
difficult questions, through such syntactic strategies as double negatives, or
multiple questions, as we see in Example 3:

(3)
1. DC2: You got in the car (2.1) without being forced – you went out there
without being forced – the problem began when you were left
there?
2. W1: (1.5) [Mm.

3. PROS: [With respect Your Worship – there are three elements to that
question and I ask my friend to break them down.

4. M: Yes – just break it up one by one Mr Humphrey.

5. DC2: You got in the car without being forced David – didn’t you?
6. W1: (1.5) No.

7. DC2: You told us – you’ve told us a ((laughs)) number of times today
you did.
8. W1: (1.3) They forced me.

In this example, the youngest witness, thirteen-year old David, is being cross-
examined by the less aggressive of the two defence counsel. In Turn 1, the law-
yer puts three different propositions, all central to the defence argument, that the
boys went in the cars of their own free will, and thus were not unlawfully de-
prived of their liberty. David appears to agree to the question, in Turn 2. How-
ever, after the prosecutor succeeds in having defence counsel question just one
proposition at a time (Turn 5), David clearly disagrees, expressing his disagree-
ment with the proposition in a complete sentence (Turn 8). This is a relatively
rare occurrence for this witness whose answers were overwhelmingly single
words, such as ‘yeah’ and ‘no’.
While the exploitation of gratuitous concurrence was central to the cross-
examination strategy, it was combined in many instances with the strategic ma-