lnu.sePublications
Change search
CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

Direct link
Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
  • vancouver
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf
"She had it coming?": An experimental study of text interpretation in a police classroom setting
Linnaeus University, Faculty of Arts and Humanities, Department of Swedish Language.
2018 (English)In: Nordic Journal of Linguistics, ISSN 0332-5865, E-ISSN 1502-4717, Vol. 41, no 2, p. 133-153Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

The aim of this study is to investigate how modifications of reporting verbs, modality, style and use of quotation marks in an authentic police report can lead to different interpretations by two groups of trainee police officers. Data was collected through an experiment in a classroom setting, where police trainees discussed two versions of the same police report in focus group discussions. The trainees' statements were categorised into three themes: impression of the victim, impression of the accused, and assessment of the situation's severity. The results show that modifications such as formal or informal choice of words and the use of scare quotes proved to be influential linguistic modifications. In contrast, variation of reporting verbs and modality appeared less significant. The two versions of the text created different impressions of both the victim and the accused, and the interpretations of the severity of the situation depicted in the text varied between the two trainee groups. This highlights the importance of further study of the linguistic constructions of victims and perpetrators in police texts, in order to ensure credibility and equality before the law.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Cambridge University Press, 2018. Vol. 41, no 2, p. 133-153
Keywords [en]
police reports, police training, text interpretation, text modification
National Category
Languages and Literature
Research subject
Humanities, Swedish
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:lnu:diva-78419DOI: 10.1017/S0332586518000094ISI: 000444805100002Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-85053689647OAI: oai:DiVA.org:lnu-78419DiVA, id: diva2:1257775
Available from: 2018-10-22 Created: 2018-10-22 Last updated: 2019-12-06Bibliographically approved

Open Access in DiVA

No full text in DiVA

Other links

Publisher's full textScopus

Authority records

Ask, Sofia

Search in DiVA

By author/editor
Ask, Sofia
By organisation
Department of Swedish Language
In the same journal
Nordic Journal of Linguistics
Languages and Literature

Search outside of DiVA

GoogleGoogle Scholar

doi
urn-nbn

Altmetric score

doi
urn-nbn
Total: 329 hits
CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

Direct link
Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
  • vancouver
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf