Franzen2018
| Franzen2018 | |
|---|---|
| BibType | ARTICLE |
| Key | Franzén2018 |
| Author(s) | Anna Franzén, Karin Aronsson |
| Title | ‘Then she got a spanking’: Social accountability and narrative versions in social workers’ courtroom testimonies |
| Editor(s) | |
| Tag(s) | EMCA, Discursive Psychology, accounts, accounting, formulation, categorizations, child custody disputes, courtroom talk, event descriptions, narrative versions, person descriptions, problem formulation, accountability |
| Publisher | |
| Year | 2018 |
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| Journal | Discourse Studies |
| Volume | 20 |
| Number | 5 |
| Pages | 577-597 |
| URL | Link |
| DOI | 10.1177/1461445618760605 |
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Abstract
Courtroom talk in child custody interrogations recurrently features contrasting event descriptions about ‘what happened’, as well as contrasting person descriptions. This case study – from a large set of audio-recorded courtroom examinations – documents how social workers’ contrasting narrative versions about alleged domestic violence are related to divergent problem formulations. Blame-account sequences feature descriptions of a particular event as violent or nonviolent and descriptions of a new partner as ‘non-adult’ or merely as ‘impulsive’ but ‘concerned’. Other contrasting person descriptions feature a target child either as ‘normal’ or as someone who ‘has a diagnosis’. This involves categorizations of the particular child either as a victim (‘normal child’) or as someone ‘with a diagnosis’, two contrasting accounts that provide divergent explanatory formulations of what the overall problem is. Ultimately, divergent testimonies also reflect how social accounts in court reflect both mitigated/aggravated descriptions of violence and divergent accounts of parents’ and children’s agency and accountability.
Notes
