Strategies to specify the scope of questions in Chinese criminal courtroom interaction

Changing the format of the question

Linguistic practices in questions can be employed to place greater pressure and constraint on responses (Clayman and Heritage, 2002, 2023). The formal question-design features can exert great social pressure on responses. By changing the format of the question, the examiner reasserts institutional authority and constrains the epistemic and pragmatic space within which a response can be produced. The data show there are two formats frequently employed by the examiner to reassert control and constrain epistemic options: prepositional wh-question and negative interrogative question.

In the following excerpt, the judge changes the format of the questions by using a preposition (such as “from” and “of”) to narrow the epistemic scope and transform broad information-seeking into constrained confirmation-seeking, thereby increasing interactional control. Under the pressure of strings of question, the defendants finally provide the answer.

(2) [Drug-smuggling] (J = judge; D = defendant)

In this drug-smuggling trial, the judge initiates the investigation about the evidence with an open-ended question on the purchase channel of the drug to encourage more detailed information. The defendant is very cautious and no further and new information is provided by only giving an answer of “the direct selling company,” which has been mentioned in his previous testimony. The judge advances the argumentative project with another question “from whom in the direct selling company” in line 4 by narrowing epistemic options of the response. Under the pressure of the practice, the defendant gives an irrelevant answer “He got the goods from me,” shifting away from the question’s propositional focus. The judge notices the irrelevance and reluctance of the previous answer, and specifies and constrains the scope in a new question “From whom did you get the product?” with a stress and stretch tone on “you” to emphasize and remind the defendant to give a relevant answer. The defendant keeps evading the question and holds the information about the evidence to the minimum by providing an answer which has been mentioned in his previous testimony. After several adjacency pairs of questions and answers, the answer of the defendant goes back to the starting point of “from the direct selling company” in line 2. The defendant keeps on dodging the question and no further information are provided. The judge interrupts the answer of the defendant and changes the format of question into “Whom of the company?” by combing a preposition form to specify the personnel information about the drug-smuggling company. After several turns of the defendant’s evasion and the judge’s persistence in specifying epistemic options in line 4, 6, 8, and 12, the defendant admits he got the “products” from his senior executive called Ai. When asked questions which may draw damaging information from the response, the defendant can be very cautious and resist providing the information. In this excerpt, even though the defendant seems “cooperatively” provides answers to the questions, they are insufficient and irrelevant information. In order to investigate the facts of evidence, the judge keeps on enacting judicial power by reasserting pragmatic control. He starts with an open-ended question so as to give a wide epistemic space to the defendant at the beginning. When he finds the answers are insufficient and irrelevant, he narrows the scope with a prepositional wh-question form to constrain the response. After several turns of “open-ended-question—evasion—specifying-question,” the defendant finally provides the name of his senior executive, and admits he has been to the Northeast, which is contradictory to his previous testimony (He explained he didn’t go out of his city and it was impossible to buy the drugs from other province.)

Negative interrogatives are conducive for an affirmative response (Bolinger, 1957). When delivered from a position of knowledge, they are understood as “assertions” rather than “questions,” whereas when delivered from a position of ignorance they assume the more familiar guise of information seeking (Clayman and Heritage, 2002, 2023; Heinemann, 2006; Heritage, 2002; Heritage and Roth, 1995; Koshik, 2002). In criminal courtroom interaction, negative interrogative questions straddle the boundary between information-seeking and confirmation-seeking. The grammatical form of the questions is interrogative, but they are understood as asserting a point of view (cf. Clayman and Heritage, 2023), as illustrated by the next example.

(3) [Robbery] (P = prosecutor; D1 = defendant [Luo])

In this robbery trial, two defendants are accused of committing robbery that results in the death of the victim. The key issue to fix the penalty is to identify the principal offender and accessory between the two defendants. In Excerpt 3, When Xie is asked about the fact of crime-conduct preparation including choosing the crime target, tailing the victim and crime weapon preparation, which is the crucial evidence to fix the penalty about the principal offender, he denies and asserts that the other defendant Xie asks him to prepare the crime weapons, implying Xie is responsible for the preparation. The prosecutor interrupts his answer and specifies the epistemic scope to the preparation of the crime weapons with a stress tone on “zhunbei” and puts a preface “what I asked is” to challenge the veracity of the previous answer and reminds the defendant to give an alternatively adequate response in line 8. The defendant still denies and insists on asserting that “It is Xie who prepared.” The prosecutor then uses a negative interrogative question and specifies the material evidence “facial mask” for confirmation-seeking to challenge the veracity of the defendant’s previous answer and exerts greater control on the defendant’s response. Even under the great pressure, the defendant is very cautious and explains that it is Xie who sent him money to buy the facial mask. The prosecutor keeps on pursuing a more adequate answer with a “what I asked is”-prefaced question and specifies the scope to the action of buying the facial mask. Under the pressure of strings of questions and constrains of epistemic options, the defendant admits that he bought the facial mask. The combination of different factors including the negative interrogative question, stress and stretch tone, “what I asked is”-preface and the pressure coming from a string of questions work cooperatively together and exert stressful effects on reasserting control. After a positive answer provided by the defendant, the prosecutor skillfully keeps on and asks another negative interrogative question “Didn’t you buy the iron stick?” in line 16. The defendant then gives a positive response in a short time.

In the next excerpt from the same robbery trial, the prosecutor also uses the negative interrogative questions in line 8 and 10 to challenge the veracity of the defendant’s previous answer.

(4) [Robbery] (P = prosecutor; D2 = defendant [Xie])

The prosecutor starts the questioning with an open-ended question which provides a wide epistemic space. After the defendant gives the answer, the prosecutor rebuts the defendant’s answer by specifying the scope and focusing on “shooting test.” The defendant denies that he had a shooting test in advance and explains he just shot a dog and never had a shooting test with the intention to target at a human being. The prosecutor challenges the defendant’s denial with a negative interrogative question “Didn’t you shoot aiming at a wooden board?,” and makes the question narrow and concrete by focusing on the information “aiming at a wooden board.” With a more stressful format and specifying the scope on the “factual context,” the question in line 8 exerts greater pressure on the defendant. Under the pressure, the defendant explains he just used a steel ball instead of an arrow to shoot aiming at a wooden board, implying it is not a shooting test. The prosecutor does not accept the reason and initiates another two negative interrogatives to increase the pressure in line 10. The one second silence of the defendant shows he is reluctant to admit, but he does not keep on insisting it is not a shooting test.

Specifying evidence

When the examiners base their questioning on concrete materials (Tracy and Reijven, 2023 ), the practice can also enact institutional power by constraining epistemic options and pragmatic space. When the examiners resist providing desired answers to the question, the prosecutors (sometimes the judges) may reassert institutional authority by specifying evidence in their follow-up questions. This strategy is often used together with (but not necessarily) changing the format of the question which has been discussed in Section “Changing the format of the question” to overcome the resistance from the examined by giving irrelevant or ambiguous responses. In both Excerpts 3 and 4, the prosecutor used “a negative interrogative question + specifying evidence” form to overcome the defendant’s resistance. The “facial mask” (line 10) and “iron stick” (line 14) in excerpt 3, and “shoot aiming at a wooden board” in excerpt 4 are specified evidence which exert control and constrain the epistemic scope.

In the next manslaughter trial, whether the defendant was aware of the presence of other people in the restaurant is a key issue to fix the penalty. The defendant resisted the first question of the judge by giving a negative answer. Then the judge used a concrete referent of location to constrain the epistemic options, and consequently received a positive answer from the defendant.

(5) [Manslaughter] (J = judge; D = defendant)

In this manslaughter trial, according to the defendant’s testimony, he drives a car to crash into the restaurant to hit a man named Feng because of gambling conflict. In this excerpt, the judge asks the defendant if there was anybody beside Feng when he drove the car to hit him in Line 1. He resists the judge’s argumentative project by giving a negative answer “there was nobody.” Unsatisfied with this response, the judge constrains the scope by providing more concrete material evidence “at the west side of the door entrance” to discipline the response space. Under the pressure of epistemic and pragmatic control, the defendant changes the negative answer (line 3) into a positive one (line 5) and admits “there were some people at the west side about two meters away from the door.” By specifying the evidence, the judge exerts greater control on the defendant and succeeds in advancing his argumentative project.

Preface

It is noticeable that “what I asked is,” “my question is,” “what I said is” are used by the examiner as a turn-initial question preface to elicit more adequate responses in Chinese criminal courtroom interaction. It is commonly used by professional examiners in courtrooms to serve three functions. (1) It underscores that the defendant or witness could provide a more adequate or relevant response than the prior answer. Using this preface can reinforce or establish a line of questioning to place greater pressure on the examined. It can help the examiner to build argumentative projects by systematically addressing gaps in the defendant’s /witness’s testimony. (2) It works as a third-turn repair initiator to reissue the question for pursuing response. Turn extension in the third position implies disalignment, disaffiliation, or disagreement. The preface works as a part of the repair initiator and reinforces the degree of disagreement. (3) In cross-examination, it can be used by the prosecutor as a strategy to demonstrate and emphasize the reluctance and resistance of the defendant or witness to the overhearing audience. These prefaces function as pragmatic assertions of authority and explicitly mark the examiner’s right to define what counts as a relevant, adequate, or truthful answer. By publicly displaying dissatisfaction with a prior response, the examiner not only repairs the interaction but also draws the overhearing audience’s attention to the inadequacy and irrelevance of the prior turn, which can exert damaging effect on the credibility and veracity of the defendant’s/ witness’s testimony.

(6) [Robbery] (P = prosecutor; D1 = defendant[Luo])

In this robbery excerpt, when the prosecutor asks the defendant (Luo) if he prepared the crime weapons, he denies and asserts it was the other defendant (Xie) who prepared. The prosecutor uses a negative interrogative question in line 1 to challenge the defendant’s denial and exerts greater control on the defendant to elicit a more adequate answer. Facing the pressure of the prosecutor’s question, Luo adjusts the response and gives an explanation “it is also Xie who transferred money (online) to me.” as a denial instead of a “yes” or “no” answer to a polar question. Unsatisfied with the evasive answer of the defendant in line 2, the prosecutor uses a preface and stretch on “you” and “buy” to emphasize that the prior answer is not a desirable answer. The preface “what I asked is” serves as a third-turn repair initiator implying disagreement and places greater pressure to reissue the question. It can also work as a strategy to demonstrate and emphasize the reluctance and resistance of the defendant to the overhearing audience, the judge, who hears and assesses the evidence and arrives at a legal judgment, the verdict.

(7) [Robbery] (P = prosecutor; D1 = defendant[Luo])

In this robbery excerpt, when the defendant Luo is asked where the other defendant Xie picked up the crossbow, he initially answers “I didn’t pay attention to the crossbow,” and adds “Anyway, when I got onto the car, I saw it was put on the driving seat at the beginning. Afterwards, when I climbed onto the front passenger seat, he then threw the crossbow onto the back seat,” which happened when the two defendants were leaving the crime scene by car after they attacked the victim. The prosecutor uses a preface “what I asked is” to start a repair initiator and clarifies that “where” referred to “at what position of the crime scene” with an increment. It implies disalignment to the previous answer and carries the implicature that the second part of the previous answer is irrelevant to the question and pursues the response by clarifying the question on “the position of the crime scene.” The defendant repairs the previous answer by eliminating the second part which is irrelevant to what the prosecutor’s question required and retaining the first part in line 8. The repair in line 8 suggests the reissuing strategy of the prosecutor exerts illocutionary effects on the listener. The repair is an embodiment of perlocutionary effect after the defendant understands the implicature of the repair initiator.

(8) [Drug-smuggling] (J = judge; D = defendant)

As analyzed in Excerpt 2, the defendant dodges the questioning for several adjacency pairs on the channel of buying drugs and his upstream contact. The judge starts the questioning with an open-ended question “how did he give the goods to you” to invite the defendant to elaborate. Instead of providing the information about the channel of buying drugs directly, the defendant constructs a narrative in line 2–5 by focusing on his junior staff instead of his upstream contact. He gives a backstory by focusing on “my junior staff needed products” and “I sent the products I got from the company to him.” However, the information about his upstream contact and how the upstream contact gave the drugs to him are not mentioned in his answer. The ambiguity of the referent is also a strategy used by the defendant to evade the questioning and resist providing relevant information which may be damaging to his penalty. In the initial question of the judge in line 1, “he” refers to the upstream contact. However, “him” (line 4) and “he” (line 5) in the defendant’s answers both refer to the junior staff instead of the upstream contact. By making use of the referent ambiguity, the defendant refuses to provide information inquired by the judge in an indirect and implicit way. Unsatisfied with the irrelevant information provided by the defendant, the judge reissues the question by using a preface “what I said is” to clarify and reinforce the information he needs is “how did you get the products of direct selling.” The preface works together with the stretch sound on “you” to place greater pressure on the defendant to provide more adequate and relevant information so as to advance the argumentative project.

Response prompt

Response prompts are cues or questions that guide someone to provide a specific type of answer. It is noticeable in my data that a type of verbal response prompt characterized by a stretch sound, rising tone and a stop with an unfinished sentence is frequently used by the examiner to elicit testimony pointing to certain specific critical evidence from the defendant and witness. By inviting the examined to “complete” an unfinished utterance, examiners create the appearance of voluntary disclosure while maintaining control over the trajectory and relevance of the emerging testimony.

To advance the line of argument, the examiner needs to skillfully design the line of questioning. Two types of techniques are usually used by the examined to exert control on the testimony: (1) the examiner may lead the examined to present the critical evidences directly by himself or herself; (2) the examined may use formulation questions (He, 2025) to make gist, upshot, or inference according to the previous testimony or material evidences and ask the examined to make confirmation on the inference. The grammatical formats of questions are different. The examiner is more likely to use open-ended questions and response prompts to encourage the examined to present the critical evidence as in Excerpts 9 and 10. Meanwhile, the examined uses polar questions and tag questions to elicit confirmation from the examined on the gist, upshot or inference and limits the answer to yes or no. When the open-ended questions and response prompts fail to elicit critical evidence, the examined may thereafter use a close-ended question to elicit confirmation from the examined as in Excerpt 11.

(9) [Manslaughter] (P = prosecutor; D = defendant)

In this manslaughter trial, the prosecutor investigates the defendant’s motive for the crime and asks questions about the gambling conflict between the defendant and Feng at the night before the crime. The prosecutor initially starts with an open-ended question to give a wide scope for the defendant to provide information. When the defendant mentions “money” in line 2, the prosecutor then asks him to give more detailed information about the money. Subsequently, the defendant provides the information about “gambling” in line 5. In the next turn, the prosecutor initially makes a gist “at the night before the crime took place, you were together. . .” according to the information provided by the defendant. However, the prosecutor does not finish the sentence and invites the defendant to finish it by providing the critical evidence. At the same time, he uses a stretch sound and rising tone on “yiqi↑:::” to encourage the defendant to finish the sentence. The answer in line 7 can prove that the strategy of response prompt used by the prosecutor succeeds in eliciting the testimony on the critical evidence.

(10) [Manslaughter] (J = judge; D = defendant)

In the same manslaughter trial as in Excerpt 9, the judge asks questions to investigate the relationship between the defendant and the victim Luo. Whether the defendant and the victim are strangers or not and whether the defendant is aware of the presence of other people in the restaurant are material evidence in fixing the penalty. When the defendant is asked “Before the crime took place, do you know Luo?,” the answer is negative. When the defendant is asked “Have (you) seen (each other) before?,” the answer is positive. The judge repeats the prior answer of the defendant in the initial part of line 5. However, he uses a stretch and rising tone “but” and then stops to invite the defendant to finish the sentence. “But” implies contradiction to the previous sentence semantically. Understanding the implication of the response prompt, the defendant cooperatively provides the information “(We) didn’t speak (to each other).” to finish the judge’s prior sentence.

(11) [Manslaughter] (P = prosecutor; D = defendant)

In Excerpt 11, the prosecutor asks questions to investigate the crime scene details. He uses a response prompt to elicit detailed information from the defendant about the route of driving his car to hit into the barbecue shop. The defendant admits that he asked Li to move his car which parked at the door of the barbecue shop so as to drive his own car into the shop to hit Feng. Subsequently, the prosecutor uses a stretch and rising tone preposition “at” to encourage the defendant to provide the detailed position where Li parked his car. The defendant does not provide the answer. After one second silence, the prosecutor uses a polar question and a tag question according to the surveillance footage to invite the defendant’s confirmation. In this example, the prosecutor takes a response prompt as the first choice to invite the defendant to present crucial information. After it fails, the prosecutor thereafter uses close-ended questions to pursue a response.

The analysis identifies four primary strategies employed by prosecutors and judges to enact pragmatic control and reassert institutional power. These strategies are not merely linguistic preferences but are interactionally enacted mechanisms designed to manage “talk-as-evidence.”

The table below summarizes these four strategies, their interactional functions, and their linguistic features within the Chinese criminal courtroom.

OPEN IN VIEWER

Strategy	Interactional purpose (pragmatic control)	Linguistic features	Examples
Changing the format of the question	To narrow the epistemic scope.	Shift from wh-questions to prepositional questions or negative interrogative	Extract 2, 3, 4“From whom. . .”“Whom of . . .”“Didn’t he. . .”“Isn’t it. . .”
Specifying evidence	To confront resistance by grounding the question in the “known facts” of the case.	“The record shows. . .”“The witness states. . .”	Extract 3, 4, 5“facial mask”“iron stick”“the west side of the door entrance”
Preface	To underscore the inadequacy of the prior answer.To reissue the question to signal disalignment.To display the examined’s resistance to the overhearing audience.	“What I asked. . .”“My question is. . .”“What I said is. . .”	Extract3, 6, 7, 8“What I asked. . .”“What I said is. . .”
Response prompt	To guide the examined to provide a specific type of answer.To exert immediate pressure for a specific answer.	Unfinished sentence with a stretch sound and a rising tone	Extract 9, 10, 11“. . .dàn:shì↑:::”“. . .yīqǐ ↑:::”