The document summarizes a workshop on analyzing language used in police interviews with child victims of sexual assault from a linguistic perspective. It provides background on how such interviews are conducted in the Netherlands, with an aim to obtain reliable information while not further damaging the child. It discusses how language can convey social meanings and actions beyond just transmitting knowledge. An example from an interview transcript is analyzed to show how the roles of the police officer and child emerge through their turns in conversation.

1. Police interviews with child victims of
sexual assault:
a linguistic perspective
Guusje Jol & Wyke Stommel
Center for Language Studies (CLS)
Dutch Language and Culture
VSE, Utrecht, 25 May 2016

2. Outline of this workshop
• Background
– police interviews with child victims in the Netherlands
• Language as action
• Working on an example
• Take home message
• Please feel free to ask questions!

3. Background - Child friendly interview room
•11 in the Netherlands
•audiovisual recordings
•2 police officers with special training

4. Background -
Dutch police interviews with child victims of sexual assault
• Children: < 12 year old
• Sexual assault: a broad, legal definition
• Concerns:
- Not damaging the child any further
- Reliable, detailed information
- As much information as possible
• ‘neutrality’ / avoiding suggestion / understandability for the child

5. Background - How to do the interview: guidance
Language-related guidance:
•Ask short questions
•Avoid complex grammar
(passives, negatives)
•Ask ‘open, non-leading
questions’
•Avoid difficult words
•Children may understand words
differently (e.g. ‘clothes’)
•And so forth…
Mostly: language as
‘transferring knowledge’

6. Outline of this workshop
• Background
– police interviews with child victims in the Netherlands
• Language as action
• Working on an example
• Take home message

7. Language as action
• ‘It is raining’
• The crops won’t die because of draught. (Bringing good news)
• Don’t forget your umbrella.
• Could you give me a ride?
• I don’t feel like playing tennis today.
• We/You/I should get the laundry inside.
• Your (the neighbour) washing machine is broken again.
• Hahaha, you’ll be wet and I stay warm and cosy inside.
• Etc etc etc
• ‘Social meaning(s)’/ ‘social actions’

8. Social meaning: what is needed?
• Intonation
• Facial expressions/non-verbal behavior
• Context (2 senses)

9. Language as action: example
?
What does the police officer do in lines 9-
11?
How does the police officer treat the
childs answer?
Why this
question?

10. What can we learn from the example?
• Things the police officer and child say, not only transfer knowledge, they
also perform actions
- Blaming / challenging (but relatively carefully formulated)
- Displaying ‘knowing having been stupid’ / presenting own behavior as irrational or
incomprehensible / deleting the option of follow up questions/ working towards the end
of this topic/sequence
- Reassuring + rejecting answer (in its literal sense)
• More actions in one utterance
• The sequence of utterances
- shows how police officer and child treat each other’s contributions
- enables monitoring + correcting
• Meaning in interaction ≠ intended meaning

11. Roles
Reassurance in a very institutional framework:
why am I saying that?
Being wiser (now), having learned from this experience

12. Outline of this workshop
• Background
– police interviews with child victims in the Netherlands
• Language as action
• Working on an example
• Conclusions

13. Intro excerpt

16. So…
• Do the questions about sources of knowledge (lines 29, 39-44) function as
neutral elicitations of sources of knowledge? Why (not)?
• How does the child respond to these questions?
• Both the police officer and child assume a role by through the turns they
take. How would you describe their roles?
• Which dilemmas does the police officer face?
• Which dilemmas does the child face?
• Advice?
- Where in the interaction?
- How?
- Explain

17. Take home message
• Meaning of language social actions sequence (‘physical’ context)
• Seemingly harmless questions defensive moves
• Intention
• ‘Literal meaning’
• Turns actions social roles/relations
- Neutral interviewing is not possible
X

18. Thank you!
• Guusje Jol: G.jol@let.ru.nl

19. Questions?
• Guusje Jol: G.jol@let.ru.nl

20. Manual…
• ‘During the entire interrogation the interrogator
regularly asks open test questions about the
sources of knowledge.
The goal of asking test questions is to determine the
origins of particular information and to gain insight in
causal relations.’
(Dekens and Van der Sleen 2013: 92).
• Example:
Police officer: ‘How do you know it was twelve o’clock?’
Witness: ‘I saw that on the clock.’
How does it work in practice?