Stokoe2009

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Stokoe2009
BibType INCOLLECTION
Key Stokoe2009
Author(s) Elisabeth H. Stokoe, Derek Edwards
Title Asking ostensibly silly questions in police–suspect interrogations
Editor(s) Alice F. Freed, Susan Ehrlich
Tag(s) EMCA, silly questions, police-suspect interrogations
Publisher Oxford University Press
Year 2009
Language
City Oxford
Month
Journal
Volume
Number
Pages 108–132
URL Link
DOI 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195306897.003.0006
ISBN
Organization
Institution
School
Type
Edition
Series
Howpublished
Book title “Why Do You Ask?”: The Function of Questions in Institutional Discourse
Chapter

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Abstract

This chapter, written by Elizabeth Stokoe and Derek Edwards, considers the occurrence in police‐suspect interrogations of what the authors term “silly questions.” A “silly question” is one that has an answer that both the police officer (i.e., the questioner) and the suspect (i.e., the answerer) already know and is asked in order “to establish for the record” something of the suspect's reported state of mind when engaged in the arrestable activity. In their analysis, Stokoe and Edwards examine the epistemic stance of the questioners and conclude that in using a silly question, the questioner adopts a “knowing” stance toward the information being requested and that these silly questions perform a bureaucratic function. The authors conclude that the institutional representatives ask questions not to obtain new information but rather to fulfill an institutionally mandated task that requires them to elicit information that they already know.

Notes