Liberman2015
| Liberman2015 | |
|---|---|
| BibType | INCOLLECTION |
| Key | Liberman2015 |
| Author(s) | Kenneth Liberman |
| Title | Producing records of testimony: some competent legal methods for incompetent trials |
| Editor(s) | Baudouin Dupret, Michael Lynch, Tim Berard |
| Tag(s) | Ethnomethodology, Law |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press |
| Year | 2015 |
| Language | English |
| City | Oxford |
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| Pages | 115–136 |
| URL | Link |
| DOI | 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190210243.003.0006 |
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| Howpublished | |
| Book title | Law at Work: Studies in Legal Ethnomethods |
| Chapter | |
Abstract
Taking legal testimony involves the practical task of objectivating conversations and producing a formal record of the proceedings. Replies to questions are allocated to developing a formal record without adequate attention paid to the meaning of a statement for the witness. Courtroom testimony involving traditionally oriented Aboriginal people in Australia’s Western Desert reveals how Aboriginal people are processed through standard legal routines of courtroom interrogation without non-Aboriginal parties recognizing the lack of comprehension by Aboriginal witnesses. Transcripts of trials involving Aboriginal people are examined ethnomethodologically in their interactional details in order to (1) ascertain, turn-by-turn, the horizon of understanding of each party in the proceedings, (2) describe how circumstantial and serendipitous local detail provides the parties with interactive tools, and (3) identify how words are built into testimony as the legal praxis at work. Once produced, the veracity of the legal record can supersede the situational meaning of the proceedings.
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