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How Some Witnesses Have Vied for Floor Control in Tanzanian Higher Courts

Tanzania Journal for Population studies and Development

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Title How Some Witnesses Have Vied for Floor Control in Tanzanian Higher Courts
 
Creator Keya, Antoni; University of Dar es Salaam
 
Description This paper is on how some witnesses in Tanzanian courts wrestle the unequal apportionmentof trial discourse resources. In the Adversarial trial, counsel has the freedom to operate withinthe initiation and feedback or follow up, which s/he uses to voice evidence at crossexamination.A witness, on the other hand, is strictly required to operate within the response move.Most witnesses find themselves vulnerable.Viewing any engagement contrary to trial norms as an act of power struggle leading to juridical ideologicaltransformation, I chose two elements of the Faircloughian Text Oriented Discourse Analysis for analysis. The study examined interactional control, focusing on interruption to see how counsel and witnessgrapple over turns. It also went for addressee disposition to see how witnesses fit themselvesinto their responder role. Of the four witnesses in the four cases examined, two witnessesengaged with trial discourse transformatively, interrupting and voicing their dissatisfactionof the way the trial counsel treated them; while the other two engaged conventionally,responding in counsel-preferred manner. Whereas this transformative engagement seemslike leading to juridical ideological transformation, the paper notes that withoutreapportioning trial discourse resources in a courtroom—which has to go with re-evaluatingthe merits of the adversarial system today—witnesses will continue being outsiders in ajustice system supposed to be their own.Keywords: addressee disposition, counsel, cross-examination, ideological transformation,interactional control, trial discourse resources
 
Publisher Tanzania Journal for Population studies and Development
 
Contributor —
 
Date 2019-05-24
 
Type info:eu-repo/semantics/article
info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion
Peer-reviewed Article
 
Identifier https://journals.udsm.ac.tz/index.php/tjpsd/article/view/2613
 
Source Tanzania Journal for Population studies and Development; Vol 24, No 1&2 (2017): TJPSD
 
Language en
 
Rights Copyright (c) 2019 Tanzania Journal for Population studies and Development