Papilota-Diaz 65
Extract 1 illustrates the phrasal self-repetition of “the
accused suddenly appeared in front of you” by the cross-examining
defense lawyer. It is a phrasal repetition because actual bits of texts
are remembered, and then retrieved to be reshaped to new contexts.
This phrase occurred six (6) times in this selected chunk of questionanswer between the defense lawyer (DL) and the rape complainant
(NM) during the cross examination. The primary source of the
defense lawyer’s questions comes from NM’s testimony during the
direct examination with the prosecution lawyer (PL).
2
C4-TSN3: 7
PL: Please inform the Court what was that unusual incident about?
NM: I was walking towards our home when he suddenly came in
front of me.
Phrasal repetitions “the accused suddenly appeared in
front of you” in Extract 1 are used as DL’s discourse strategy to
recontextualize information “he suddenly came in front of me”
first told by NM in the direct examination as shown in Extract 2.
This glossing or developing the gist of a witness’s earlier statements
is called selective reformulation (Garfinkel and Sacks 1970). DL,
however, reformulates and recycles “the accused suddenly appeared
in front of you” several times in Extract 1, and these repetitions
refer to two varying events: (1) the accused (RM) appearing in front
of the witness at the foot walk when the latter was going home;
and, (2) RM’s appearing in front of the witness when she regained
consciousness. Obviously, these two events transpire in different
manners and at different periods of time. However, an improbable
witness may confuse the two events especially with the lawyer’s
repetitions of the phrase and projection of information just like in
DL’s questioning. In fact, DL attempts to mislead NM by recycling
the same phrase, so she or the judge may think that RM just stood
in front of her when she regained consciousness (i.e., while in
actuality RM was doing a “pumping” motion, C4-TSN4: 15), and
this attempt may eventually lead to the claim that RM did not rape
her. With the use of the repeated phrases, DL wants NM to accept
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