‘Please make your verdict speak the truth’: Insights from an Appraisal analysis of the closing arguments from a rape trial
AbstractIt is common knowledge that language use inside the courtroom is an effective tool of persuasion; thus, even in cases where evidence is unreliable, men and women have found themselves facing charges, standing trial and, in the worst case scenario, wrongfully convicted of a crime. In this paper I examine one such case, in which a young American finds himself accused and, later, imprisoned for the rape of a minor, despite evidence to suggest otherwise. The case is taken from a database set up by The Innocence Project, a non-profit organisation comprising a team of volunteers working towards proving the innocence of over 200 individuals currently serving time for a crime that they insist they did not commit. More specifically, my analytical focus is on the closing arguments of the selected case for the purposes of acquiring insights into how the attorneys for each side make particular language choices in a final attempt to maximise the credibility of their version of events. To reveal how the defendant and the victim are portrayed by each of the lawyers and, moreover, whose feelings and/or character traits are brought to the forefront, an Appraisal analysis is carried out on the dataset.