An Analysis Of The Police – Witness Interview Discourse: The Case Of Two Police Institutions In West Shoa Zone, Oromia Regional State
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Date
2019-05
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AAU
Abstract
The study aimed at analyzing the police _ witness interview discourses in Oromia Regional State,West Shoa Zone. Ambo town and Dire Inchini woreda police institutions were selected purposely for the study. Qualitative research methodology was employed to attain the research objectives. The participants of the study were eight police interviewers, four selected using convenience sampling from Ambo town police institution and four selected using available sampling from Dire Inchini Woreda police institution. Besides, four respondents to the researcher’s interviews (two from each site) selected purposely were participants of the study. Qualitative data were collected using audiotapping
of the police _ witness interviews(interactions) and using the semi structured interviews from
the four respondents. Totally, thirty six recordings (four hours) recordings were made from the two sites. Twenty two of the recordings were selected for the research purpose, transcribed using Gail Jeferson’s (1984) transcription conventions, translated into English and analyzed qualitatively using Conversation Analysis (CA), Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), and Pragmatics. Results obtained from the analysis of the data transcripts indicated that there was a strong power
asymmetry (control of the discourses) slanted in favor of the police interviewers in the police_witness interviews. This power asymmetry was revealed mainly through poor rapport building at the opening phase of the interviews, the interviewers’ repeated interruptions of the witnesses’ utterances, the controlling of the turn takings, the commanding (ordering) utterances, the positioning of the police interviewers themselves as persistent questioners using (‘WH’ questions, Yes/ No questions and other
syntactically non – interrogatives). The finding also showed that the police interviewers had the first go to set the agenda for the subsequent discussions with the participants (interviewees/witnesses) in the study. They were sources of the agenda for the interactions. The discursive roles given to the police interviewers and the witnesses, the higher status given to the police interviewers institutionally and their relative knowledge influenced the dynamics of the interactions during the interviews. Evadings from the main agenda of the interviews (intentional digressions), pauses and disagreements
with the interviewers’ ideas were merely used by the witnesses as strategies to minimize the imposition from the interviewers. The finding also indicated that the witnesses had feelings of powerlessness in relation to the police interviewers who were perceived as persons with every power, right, dignity, status, freedom, and knowledge.
Finally, it was recommended that police organizations are expected to implement comprehensive trainings on language technicalities, fundamental interviewings to develop more effective interviewers to help the judicial procedures. Police interviewers need to establish a better rapport with the interviewees or witnesses before they go into the interview proper. People (the society) should be given awareness about police_witness interviews through short trainings. Further studies must also be conducted on the relationship between the police interviewers and the interviewees witnesses) in the police _witness interviews.
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Keywords
police, witness, discourse, discourse analysis