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40Manipulative Use of Affect and Evidential Markers in Legal Discourse
Research Article
Fatima Zohra Moussa Sassi
Abstract
The focus of this research is on discursive manipulation in legal discourse through affect and evidential markers (emotional, source, and reliability indicators). This paper is an attempt to answer this question: how do positive and negative affect markers, degree of certainty, and source of knowledge stimulate manipulative mechanisms in legal discourse? Since it is about manipulative discourse in a social situation, Critical Discourse Analysis is highly involved. The legal discourse used in this research is the transcript of the hearings of the CEO of Facebook in the congress on the 10th and 11th of April 2018. The research revealed the contribution of affect markers and modes of knowing associated with reliability markers in realizing a manipulative environment. The most relevant markers are 'we' and group power, 'specifically' and shift of focus, 'I think' and lack of belief; that is to say, the markers in this discourse reflect the speaker's (mis)representation of attitude towards the situation, affiliation, and source of knowledge.
Received:
1 May 2020 Reviewed: 18 May 2020 Accepted: 24 May 2020 Published: 7 June 2020
UDC: 8142
Keywords
affect markers; critical discourse analysis; evidential markers; evidentiality; legal discourse; manipulation; manipulative mechanisms
English Language department, Faculty of Letters, Arts and Human Siences, University of Sousse, Erriadh City 4023, Sousse, Tunisia
Corresponding author:
Fatima Zohra Moussa Sassi (Ms.), [email protected]
For citation:
Moussa Sassi, Fatima Zohra. 2020. "Manipulative Use of Affect and Evidential Markers in Legal Discourse." Language. Text. Society 7 (1). https://ltsj.online/2020-07-1-moussasassi.
Language. Text. Society
Vol. 7 No. 1, 2020 ISSN 2687-0487
Introduction
The social influence practised by any kind of pressure or technique to abuse a person's psychological or physical independence is called manipulation (Laurens 2003, 1). Many researches were conducted in the investigation of manipulation. In socio-psychology Stephane Laurens (2003) studies 'Mental Manipulation'; Laurens strongly insists that 'Belief' and acceptability are conditions for a successful manipulation. In psychology, Buss, Gomes, Higgins and Lauterbach (1987) elaborate on 'Tactics of Manipulation'; they inferred the role of social-environment, person-environment and personality in drawing the manipulative tactic. In linguistics, Sperber and Wilson (1995), Ferris (2002) and Allott (2005), tend to confirm that one of the reasons for a successful manipulation is the misuse and/or mis-decoding of a concept(s). In the same context, Chomsky and Herman (1988) ran an empirical research on political manipulation and the effect of concepts misuse on the audience beliefs and acts. It is the same idea conducted by Aldridge and Luchjenbroers (2007) concerning conceptual misuse in the legal discourse.
This paper is based on Van Dijk's (1998) paper on Critical discourse Analysis (CDA), mind control and social abuse, and Van Dijk's (2006) triangulation research on manipulative act as social power abuse, cognition control and critical discourse analysis, and also on Saussure's (2005) article on Manipulation and Cognitive pragmatics where he developed defeating human's mind veracity checking device. It is also based on Maillat and Oswald's (2009) paper on manipulative mechanisms, and in the same perception as Fetzer's (2014) led research on the co-occurrence of modality and evidentiality (I mean, I think, I believe) in political discourse. We should mention Furko's (2017) research paper on manipulative impact of pragmatic markers in political mediatized discourse.
This paper is an investigation of evidential and affect markers implication in manipulative use in legal discourse. Thus, it answers the following questions: how could AMs and EMs work for the service of manipulation? What are the highly used EMs and AMs in the service of manipulation in legal discourse? and What are the manipulative mechanisms realized in legal discourse?
Critical Discourse Analysis is used as approach theory, since, it is a suitable ground to investigate the manipulative use of pragmatic markers in discourse (Wodak 2007; Furko 2017, 3). Van Dijk (1998) sees CDA as a domain interested in social power, domination, representation of others and interests, though, it is the 'most relevant' discourse analytical research (Van Dijk 1998, 10). He also asserted that cognitive aspects in a discourse help in the achievement of social and discursive mechanisms of manipulation (Van Dijk 2008; Furko 2017, 3).
The legal discourse used for the fulfillment of this research, is the transcripts of CEO of Facebook Mark Zuckerberg's testimony: the first, held on the 10th of April 2018 titled 'Data privacy and Russian disinformation on his social network', and the second, held on 11th of April 2018 titled 'Facebook: Transparency and use of Consumer Data', at the Congress, in Washington. The transcripts of the hearings were published by courtesy of Bloomberg Government and by House Committee on Energy and Commerce, respectively.
The framework used in this research is Ifantidou's (2001) reviewed taxonomy of evidential markers of Chafe (1986), that is a classification of (5) five modes of knowing markers, (2) two matching knowledge prepositions and degree of certainty markers. In addition to Biber and Finegan's (1989) classification of affect markers, which are divided into (2) two classes: positive and negative affect markers, each class composed of a set of adverbs, adjectives and verbs.
Literature review
Manipulation is perceived as a natural phenomenon, that originated with language use (Maillat
and Oswald 2009, 363), it is a tool to answer manipulator needs by affecting the manipulated person's belief and behaviour against their interests (Akopova 2013, 78); to succeed in this the manipulator uses a set of social, psychological and linguistic mechanisms (devices).
The mechanisms were pointed out by Van Dijk (1998) but they are categorized by Saussure (2005) into two main classes: global and local. The global class shares the social and psychological devices; where the local class deals with the linguistic device, it cares mostly for the utterance processing and interpretation (p. 126). Maillat and Oswald (2009) reviewed this categorization and enhance a new cognitive factor inspired from Saussure's (2005) paper on 'Manipulation and cognitive pragmatics'.
In this work, the mechanisms are classified into three main classes: linguistic, social and psychological, respectively (where Maillat and Oswald's (2009) classification is considered). The classes cannot be totally detached from each other since they are a configuration to generate a specific environment. Van Dijk and Buss (and colleagues), insist that manipulation deals with social and psychological factors to successfully achieve manipulator's goals (2006, 362; Buss, Gomes, Higgins and Lauterbach 1987, 1220).
The first manipulative mechanism is the linguistic devices. Based on the fact that all texts are manipulative to some extent (Saussure 2005, 115), despite the linguistic incapacity to distinguish manipulative texts (Saussure 2005, 127; Akopova 2013, 79) manipulative texts share some features that Van Dijk lists in 2003. Some of those features and others are taken into consideration and divided into semantic and pragmatic features. Semantic Features are mostly about semantic macro structures (topic selection as negative/positive about us/them), local meaning (our/their positive/negative actions), lexicon (select positive/negative words regarding us/them), local syntax (active vs passive sentences, our/their positive/negative agency and responsibility), rhetorical figures (hyperbole vs euphemisms, metonymies and metaphors emphasizing our/their positive/negative image), and expressions (sounds and visuals, tone, prosody, large, bold) (Van Dijk 2003; Van Dijk 2006, 372-373). With pragmatic features, more importance is attached to either confirmation with objective reality (reliability and honesty concerning a speech related to present and/or past), or to the pragmatic factor (frankness and clarity concerning an associated speech with future) (Akopova 2013, 78), overall interaction strategy (positive self-presentation and negative other-presentation), and macro/local speech acts implying ('our' 'good' vs 'their' 'bad' acts) (Van Dijk 2003; Van Dijk 2006, 372-373).
The second manipulative mechanism is social devices. It is the speaker's use of the social environment to design an appropriate manipulative tactic for the interlocutors. This mechanism consists of group pressure and super-competent appearance achievement, to make the hearer confident in the speaker (Saussure 2006, 128). It is based on two factors: communicative goals and social inequality factors. Communicative goals are studied by many researchers (Van Dijk (2006), Rigotti (2005), Saussure (2005) and Schulz (2005)). Manipulative communicative goal (called speaker's interests by Maillat and Oswald (2009) and Van Dijk (2006) (2003) (1998)) is speaker's attempt to make the audience believe and react for the other's interest without knowing (Van Dijk 2006, 360); or, to make them infer the obligation of behaving in the service of speaker's interests, without being aware that the speaker covers some relevant information for specific aims (Saussure 2005, 119-120). Social inequality is inevitably taken into consideration by any manipulator. It is the imbalance in power and dominance (Maillat and Oswald 2009, 358); it may also be a matter of belief in distinction between super-competent and under-competent interlocutors (Saussure 2005, 137). This point is foremost discussed as psychological factor. However, the absence of social power does not mean the ineffectiveness of manipulation, because in the case of social power equality (e.g.: friends), or social power inferiority (e.g. kids/ parents) may compromise a successful manipulative act. However, in case of social supremacy a simple act of persuasion could be sufficient (Maillat and Oswald 2009, 358). Most cases of power abuse are observed when addressing intellectuals (Saussure 2005, 122). Which
means that in case of intellectual and social supremacy the manipulator heads for persuasion in a power abuse, which probably reflects challengability act.
The third mechanism is psychological devices. This mechanism is broadly studied by psychologists like Buss, Gomes, Higgins and Lauterbach and also by sociopsychologists like Stephane Laurens. The existence of manipulative personality is a fact, elaborated by Van Dijk (1998, 10-12) mentioned by Van Dijk (2006, 362), and cited by Maillat and Oswald (2009, 358). This personality is mostly characterized by "character traits, intelligence, learning" (Van Dijk 2006, 362), "perceived power, authority and credibility" (Van Dijk 1998, 10; Giles and Coupland 1991). Regarding the research requirements, the focus is mainly on intention and cognitive esteem (intelligence and learning): intention known as the core of communication, according to post-neo Gricean (Maillat and Oswald 2009, 359); and a fundamental factor in the consideration of a manipulative act. The manipulative intention exists in any communication where the addressee is not aware of the 'full consequences' and the 'real intention' planned by the speaker (Van Dijk 2006, 360). This implicates that the presence of any personalized intention is a condition to consider a simple legitimate act of persuasion as an act of manipulation (Van Dijk 2006, 361; Dillard and Pfau 2002; O'Keefe 2002). That is why, from a speaker-oriented conception, it may be seen as a deliberate deceptive act, whereas, the addressee sees the manipulative discourse as a communicative exchange. In such cases, the addressee believes that the speaker/writer is cooperative, and tries to explore the interlocutor's intention which is falsified or hidden through the manipulative discourse (Maillat and Oswald 2009, 359). Maillat and Oswald argue that the addressee's captured intention from the speaker's discourse 'crucially mismatches' the manipulator's (deceptive) intention which is deliberately covert and meant to be unrecognized (2009, 359). The cognitive esteem is the current addition by Maillat and Oswald's research (2009), inspired and developed by Saussure (2005). They consider this factor as an important device in the manipulative procedure to mis/lead the addressee. It guarantees the addressee's narrow accessibility to some contextual assumptions. Van Dijk commented on that by saying it is the act of 'over coding' that needs an 'over decoding' or 'over analysis' of the given utterance (Maillat and Oswald 2009, 365). The concept cognitive esteem (optimism) was discussed by Cara, Girotto and Sperber (1995), where they assert "...people are nearly-incorrigible. They take for granted that their spontaneous cognitive processes are highly reliable; and the output of these processes does not need rechecking" (Maillat and Oswald 2009, 365; Cara, Girotto and Sperber 1995, 90).
However, Saussure states that the human's mind is characterized by a 'source-tagging device', this device estimates the reliability of the source of information communicated (Saussure 2005, 131; Sperber 2000); which means, 'source-tagging device' is the checking tool of reliability of the source of knowledge that is represented in any proposition by 'modal and evidential' markers. Saussure continues by saying: "a prominent source is 'credible authority'. It follows that manipulators have to establish credibility, and it is common sense that the building of an over-competent image is a key to this process of gaining confidence" (Saussure 2005, 131; Sperber 2000). That is to say, manipulators tend to use modal and evidential markers to reflect sincerity (credibility), over-competence and confident audience/readers. Saussure notes also this equation "The more confident the hearer is, the less critically he thinks" (2005, 131), which means that the cognitive aspect and the information process is related to the confidence in the speaker/writer.
A successful manipulative act begins when the addressee adopts the false belief in the speaker's benevolence, cooperation and relevance (Saussure 2005, 137). In other words, any emotional game established by speaker's shared emotions with the hearers (be it fake or real) transmitted through emotional devices like prosody, intonation, attitude of the speaker, propositional content of utterances (concepts/affective markers) (p. 134) may affect the rational side of the addressee. Saussure insists on the fact that the moral values propositions are easily transmitted through a manipulative discourse, because of their instability. Thus, the addressee tends to check the accessibility of the moral value
regarding the ethical and cultural (socio-cultural) values; and he notes that the adoption and construction of new beliefs in the cognitive environment of the addressee is less obstructed when addressing critical (weakened) socio-cultural values (like democracy, equality and rights) (2005, 123). These values frequently appear in political, religious, legal and media discourse.
Akopova cited Aldridge and Luchjenbroers (2007) when talking about manipulation as a fundamental key of conceptual strategy. Aldridge and Luchjenbroers used legal discourse (court trial questions) for corpus analysis and inferred 'framing questions', 'smuggling information' and 'conceptual manipulation'. They assert that the use of these lexical tools ('framing questions', 'smuggling information' and 'conceptual manipulation') are intentionally selected by the speaker to mislead judges and witnesses' (addressees) attention (Akopova 2013, 79). That is to say that legal discourse may be manipulative in regard to the lexical choice.
Evidential markers and affect markers are among the important lexical indicators in discourse. Affect markers (in English) are words/phrases/expressions used to reflect personal attitudes, concerned specifically with emotional side, feelings, moods, and general expressions (Schieffelin and Ochs 1986; Biber and Finegan 1989, 94). They are divided into positive and negative AMs and listed by Biber and Finegan (1989). Evidential markers (in English) are words/phrases/expressions, they reflect the expression of evidence, the interpretation of attitudes toward knowledge and reliability of the statement (Chafe 1986, 261). Chafe established a taxonomy that was reviewed by Ifantidou (2001).
Material and methods
The data used is an oral legal discourse that is called a hearing or testimony. The hearings of Mr. Zuckerburg (CEO of Facebook) in the U.S. Congress on the 10th and 11th of April 2018 were directly defused on many official websites like that of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation; United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary; ABC, and The Guardian. The recorded videos are still available on YouTube (https://youtu.be/GQN4On0K7-w) and (https://youtu.be/mZaec mlq9M).
The transcripts of the hearings were published on the 11th and 12 th of April, by Courtesy of Bloomberg Government and by House Committee on Energy and Commerce, respectively. The first transcript (hearing of the 10Th of April)1, entitled "Data privacy and Russian disinformation on his social network", conjoins about 360 questions and answers. The second transcript (hearing of the 11Th of April)2, entitled "Facebook: Transparency and Use of Consumer Data" is composed of nearly 340 questions and answers.
The corpus is composed of two transcripts, each transcript is manually divided into two extracts: Q (Question) extract contains all what was said by the senators, chairmen and chair-ladies; it covers the opening words, questions, notes and comments, and A (Answer) extract contains all what Mr. Zuckerberg expressed as answers, comments and even questions. This means that the corpus is composed of four extracts: Q1 and A1 from transcript of the 10th and Q2 and A2 from transcript of the 11th. The corpus consists of about 94 141 words distributed as follows:
Table
The size of each ^ extract of the corpus
Corpus T1 T2
Q1 A1 Q2 A2
Size 26417 18156 32951 16617
Corpus size 94 141
1 https://docs.house.gov/meetings/IF/IF00/20180411/108090/HHRG-115-IF00-Transcript-20180411.pdf
2 https://energycommerce.house.gov/committee-activity/hearings/hearing-on-facebook-transparency-and-use-of-consumer-data-full-committee
The framework investigated in this research is Affect Markers (AMs) list elaborated by Biber and Finegan (1989), composed of a set of verbs, adverbs and adjectives of negative and positive affect in a proposition (the list consists of 234 markers (words)), and Evidential Markers (EMs) taxonomy of Chafe (1986) reviewed by Ifantidou (2001); it is composed of lists of reliability, belief, induction, hearsay, deduction, sensory evidence, matching knowledge against verbal resources, and matching knowledge against expectations markers; which means a list of 77 markers (expressions and words). (Both affect and evidential markers taxonomies are joined in the appendix.)
The corpus extracts (Q1, A1, Q2 and A2) were separately inserted and analyzed, in Antconc 3.5.8 software to calculate the frequency of concordance and clusters of collocates of EMs and AMs. Where both EMs and AMs lists were divided to sub lists, they are separately investigated. The whole framework is composed of 10 markers lists that are investigated in each extract (Q1, A1, Q2, and A2).
Results and discussion
Affect markers in Mr. Zuckerburg's testimonies: Affect markers distribution in Mr. Zuckerberg's testimonies is generally modest; however, this modest use has a significant interpretation.
0,07 0,06 0,05 0,04 0,03 0,02 0,01 0
ll.
Positive AM in Q
I _■■
Positive AM in A Negative AM in Q Negative AM in A
with 'I' ■ with 'we' ■ with 'it' ■ with 'they'
Figure 1. Distribution of Affect Markers in the testimonies
The analysis of this graph shows a higher use of positive AMs compared with negative ones. Positive AMs greater use is with the pronoun ' I' in extract Q, 0.06%, the markers mostly used are 'hope', 'wish', 'want','interesting, which shows hope and sympathy expressed by Senators, chairmen and chair-ladies (Q speakers) with the witness; extract A modest use of Positive AMs with 'I' (mostly 'want', 'hope' and 'happy') indicates future intentions, hope, where 'happy' as in 'I'm happy to answer and 'I'm happy to follow up with you' reflects somehow the acceptability of the situation and the cooperativeness of the speaker.
Positive AMs occurrence with 'we' in Q was nearly a half of the positive AMs with 'we' in A, that refers un-subjectivity and groups' involvement. The high frequency of occurrence of positive AMs with
'they in A (0.04%) in comparison with Q (0.006%) reflects the belief of A speaker in the well-being of 'they', mostly their interest and willingness. Positive AMs with 'it frequency is quite similar, the markers were variant to describe the situation as natural and significant. Concerning the negative AMs, a remarkable frequency in Q with 'I' (more than 0.04%) expresses the anxiety of Q speakers, while the absence of this later in A shows a slight disappointment of A speaker as an individual while as a group more of concern appears with the use of negative AMs with 'we'. Negative AMs with 'it shows a triple use in Q than in A, which confirms the worries of Q speaker and the lack of luck in 'It is unfortunate that'. Negative AMs with 'they' in Q shows the existence of 'they'; 'concerned' expresses the concern of 'they' in A, it expresses the awareness of the speakers about the worries of 'they'.
Evidential markers in Mr. Zuckerburg's testimonies: The EMs in this corpus were a selection of evidential markers from the taxonomy of Chafe (1986) reviewed by Ifantidou (2001). The study of frequency of occurrence reveals the use of all of reliability mode of knowing and knowledge matching markers; detailed as follows:
Reliability Markers: A selection of reliability markers from the taxonomy of Chafe (1986) reviewed by Ifantidou (2001) analysis lead to the following (Figure 2); where the most five (5) frequently used markers in the discourse were taken into consideration in the graph:
Q1 A1 Q2 A2
vH IN
rn
(N
certainly probably might may specifically
Figure 2. Reliability markers distribution in the testimony
The results show a mediocre use of reliability markers in this corpus; it consists of a total of 449 markers in the whole corpus (which means about 2%). It is observable that the CEO of Facebook used more frequently 'certainly' in the 1st hearing (18.51%) than the 2nd (9.91%), however, it was the opposite with the congress committee (4.13%) than a higher use (12.5%). This could be taken as a proof on gain and loss of (self-)confidence, dominance of evidence, or simply honesty (reliability of the witness).
The marker 'probably' was quite similarly used by both congress committee and the witness; that means both groups had possibilities or expectations, like in "...lot of people probably just accept terms of service without taking the time to read..." and "You'll probably want to put some stuff out there publicly..." from A2 and A1, respectively. 'May' was highly used in Q (25% and 23.1%), which means
that Q speakers are talking about present possibilities. However, A speaker used 'might instead, which indicates a speaker's past hypothesis.
The marker 'specifically' was nearly doubly used by the CEO of Facebook (11.57%) in A2 (when talking about his company Facebook), in compression with other extracts (6.61%, 6.48% and 6.61%), that may mean that the witness is attracting focus to a specific aspect to hide or (mis)lead the audience to precise assumption or implicatures, or that the Congress committee were asking vague and open questions, that the witness was asking about narrowing down the question, as in 'I just want to make sure I get specifically what you're asking' and 'Senator, are you asking about those specifically?' from A1. However, it could also mean that the witness focused on some details in the utterances produced, which helped him to distance himself from the information by declaring the unawareness and unfamiliarity with the information communicated, like in ' I am not specifically familiar with that...' and 'I am not specifically aware of this quote, but I heard that.' from extract A2.
Mode of knowing markers: Mode of knowing in this corpus was varied, as Figure 3 exposes. It is clearly observable that sensory markers were slightly used in comparison to other modes of knowing, around 0.1% in every extract. The used markers are mostly 'feel' and 'heaf, those two markers could also be related to another mode of knowing; 'feel' can be seen as a belief marker, for example: "...I feel like we can fully investigate...' (from A1) can be translated to a belief in a capacity/ possibility more than a feeling. On the other hand, 'hear' that reflects a hearsay mode of knowing, for example: ".we hear about it from people.." (from Q2) that implicates 'people say/said'.
Concerning hearsay markers, the use is nearly doubled in Q1 and Q2 (0.27 % and 0.29%) in regard to A1 and A2 (0.1% and 0.19%); that means that Q extracts speakers (senators, chairmen and chair-ladies) communicate more of hearsay markers than A speaker (Mr. Zuckerberg). This implicates that Q speakers have as a source of information language (lingual evidence); and that they have a higher rate of expectations, in regard to Chafe's (1986) mode of knowing types. It is worth mentioning that, the lower rate of frequency of EMs obtained was in A1 with hearsay markers (0.1%), which may indicate the speaker's unwillingness to reveal his source of verbal evidence and/or simply the absence of lingual evidence (language).
Regarding the induction markers, the extracts were nearly equal in the production of induction; which is a proof that all speakers have (in)direct, attested or inferred evidence for their claims; and equivalent verbal resources markers may be detected later.
The least reliable mode of knowing, according to Chafe (1986), is 'deduction'. Deduction markers in Q extracts remain a normal factor since Q speakers are addressing questions, to A extracts' speaker, based on hypothesis. However, the highest rate of frequency of EMs expressed was deduction markers (1.08%) in A2; which reveals that the source of knowledge considered by the speaker was hypothesis; and that the speaker tried to avoid responsibility, according to Chafe (1986, 270).
The most reliable mode of knowing is 'belief'. Belief markers in this discourse were less produced by Q speakers (0.4% and 0.38%) in comparison to A speaker (0.91% and 0.63%). The two most frequently occurred markers were 'I know' and 'I think'; 'I know' occupied only 5.9% of belief markers occurrence in A1 and 5% in A2, which means that belief markers frequently occurred was ' I think' (nearly 95% of belief markers) in A extracts, however, 'I think' reflects reliable and unreliable information, for example in:' I think you're absolutely right' and 'I think you probably should have full expectations' the proof that 'I think' has a replication of belief in knowledge that can be affected by reliability markers: 'absolutely' - high certainty and 'probably' - uncertainty marker used in case of assumption.
Q1 A1 Q2 A2
Bel i ef Ms
Induction Ms
li
Hearsay Ms
0
1
<H
, CN O vH
Deduction Ms Sensory evidence Ms
Figure 3. Mode of knowing markers distribution in the testimony
The distribution of some evidential markers in testimonies of CEO of Facebook: in this graph evidential markers are involved except reliability markers, since reliability markers reflect degradable certainty.
1,4
0,2 _______
0
Q1 A1 Q2 A2
belief induction hearsay deduction
sensory evidence verbal resourse expectations
Figure 4. Distribution of the mode of knowing and matching knowledge markers in the testimony
Through this graph, many observations can be drawn out. First of all, the parallelism of belief and deduction, where superiority (higher frequency of occurrence) is to deduction over belief. In respect to the fact that deduction is considered as the least reliable mode of knowing, according to Chafe (1986), it is the highly used in all extracts, but slightly exceeded by the expectations in Q1 and nearly equal in Q2. The testimony was mostly based on deduction and expectations more than belief and induction (highly reliable modes of knowing).
Parallelism is also remarkable between hearsay and verbal resources, which should not be the case since the latter is normally the matching knowledge of induction. Induction is highly produced than belief, which remains the logicality of speakers, the discourse is based on evidence as a source of knowing, except in A1, belief exceeds induction.
It should be also mentioned that the relation between belief and verbal resources is contradictory, Q extracts' speakers use more of verbal resource markers than belief markers; the opposite for A extracts' speaker, which probably reflects the contradictory relation between induction (and its evidence) and belief.
Conclusion
Affect and evidential markers are implicated with linguistic manipulative mechanisms. AMs serves lexicon features, when using 'I' and 'we' the speaker reflects the suitable (it may be ostensive) emotional implication with the situation; in this corpus A speaker's expression of anxiety and disappointment. Cooperativeness is also represented through the expression of acceptability of the situation; in this corpus A speaker claims happiness to be in the situation. EMs concerning modes of knowing implicate ambiguity and responsibility about source of knowledge, and commitment; in this case the use of deduction markers (to avoid responsibility), the rare use of hearsay markers and the use of belief marker 'I think' in regard to indecisiveness between certainty and doubt.
Concerning reliability, the markers of degree of certainty support the mode of knowing and/or the statement; in this situation the dominance of 'probably','may', 'might supports the deductive mode of knowing; the use of 'specifically' shifts focus by reformulating ambiguous questions. Social manipulative mechanisms are also involved, through group affiliation, in the corpus use of 'we' more than 'I'.
Other manipulative devices cannot be inductively approached. However deductively, communicative goals or speaker interests in any legal discourse from an interviewee (witness or accused) perspective are certainly similar—the speaker aims to be innocent (not responsible), free, not fined, and/or safe. Thus, any other speaker's interests expressed are either secondary interests or ostensive. Deductively also, psychological manipulative mechanisms involvement with AMs is used to express happiness and willingness, which logically remains an ostensive intention. So, manipulation may be effective through (mis)representation of attitude towards the situation, affiliation and source of knowledge.
To conclude, evidential markers as source of knowledge and reliability in legal discourse works for the establishment of ambiguity and indirectness, it helps in misleading the audience concerning the source of knowledge and trouble their knowledge treatment process, in association with affect markers. Like emotional indicators, they contribute to the construction of wanted image of the speaker (or the group) to gain credibility, achieve cooperative and confident statute, then a lower veracity checking procedure. And that's how affect and evidential markers serve for manipulative use in legal discourse.
It can also be concluded that in any verbal communicative exchange (conversation, interrogation) the comparison of affect markers distribution may be a reflection of the speaker's attitude towards the communicative situation, and that even the absence of affect markers is significant. Concerning evidential markers, the use of deduction in legal discourse implicates that the discourse was not as informative as it should be. Furthermore, in such discourse belief markers may not be highly reliable (in contradiction with Chafe's schema of evidentiality).
This paper may have further implications for forensic linguistics perspective.
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Appendix 1. Ifantidou's (2001) reviewed taxonomy of Chafe (1986)
Markers of Markers of Markers of Markers of Markers of Markers of Markers of Markers of
reliability belief induction hearsay deduction sensory evidence matching knowledge against verbal resources matching knowledge against expectations
certainly I think must people say should I see kind of of course
undoubtedly I guess obvious they say can I hear about in fact
surely I suppose seem I've been told could I feel sort of actually
by definition I know evidently X told me would looks like even
exactly I suspect seems to X said presumably sounds like only
invariably must be supposed to feels like but
literally must have apparently it tastes however
particularly so it seems smells like nevertheless
specifically I deduce have been said oddly enough
basically consequently I hear
essentially he is said
generally he is reputed
primarily allegedly
maybe reportedly
probably X tells me
might
may
possibly
perhaps
in some sense
normally
virtually
obviously
Appendix 2. Chafe's (1986, 266) evidentiality figuration
source of mode of knowledge
knowledge knowing matched against
reliable
k n
??? - - - > belief - - - > o
evidence — > induction — > w — > verbal resources
language - - - > hearsay - - - > l - - - > expectations
hypothesis - - - > deduction - - - > e
d
g
e
unreliable
Appendix 3. Biber and Finegan's taxonomy of Affect markers (1989, 120-122)
AFFECT MARKERS
Markers of positive affect
Markers of negative affect
Adverbs
Verbs
amazingly luckily alarmingly perplexingly
amusingly mercifully annoyingly regretfully
appropriately naturally ashamedly sadly
astonishingly predictably depressingly shockingly
conveniently preferably disappointingly strangely
curiously refreshingly disgustingly suspiciously
enchantingly remarkably disturbingly tragically
fortunately rightly embarrassingly unfortunately
funnily significantly frighteningly unhappily
happily surprisingly impatiently unlikely
hopefully thankfully oddly unnaturally
incredibly unaccountably
inevitably understandably
interestingly unexpectedly
ironically
ache for yearn begrudge disgusts
enjoy amazes can't stand dismays
fancy amuses deign distresses
hope astonishes despise disturbs
like delights detest embarrasses
long for interests dislike frightens
love pleases dread horrifies
prefer refreshes envy irritates
relish suits fear kills
seek surprise hate overwhelms
want thrills loathe pains
wish regret perplexes
resent perturbs
scorn puzzles
aggravates rubs
agitates saddens
alarms scares
annoys shocks
bothers slays
confuses troubles
disappoints upsets
discourages worries
Adjectives
amazed astonishing
amused convenient
astonished curious
content delightful
curious fascinating
delighted fitting
eager fortunate
enchanted funny
fascinated incredible
fortunate inevitable
glad interesting
happy ironic
hopeful lucky
interested merciful
jubilant natural
keen nice
lucky pleasing
overjoyed predictable
pleased preferable
proud proper
relieved refreshing
satisfied remarkable
surprised significant
thankful surprising
amazing understandable
amusing unexpected
appropriate
afraid unhappy
aggrieved upset
alarmed worried
annoyed alarming
ashamed annoying
concerned confusing
depressed disappointing
disappointed disgusting
disgusted distressing
dismayed disturbing
dissatisfied embarrassing
distressed frightening
embarrassed hopeless
frightened horrible
furious improper
impatient irritating
indignant odd
irritated perplexing
mad puzzling
odd regrettable
overwhelmed sad
perplexed scary
perturbed silly
puzzled strange
regretful suspicious
sad terrible
scared tragic
shocked unfortunate
suspicious unnatural
upsetting
worrisome
