The Language of Bribery Cases

The Language of Bribery Cases describes ten bribery-related court cases for which Roger W. Shuy served as an expert language witness. The cases described include the bribery or alleged bribery of United States senators, congressmen, judges, businessmen, and brothel owners, among others. Shuy describes the often-unused linguistic analytical tools that are available to both the prosecution and defense as they argue these cases. His analysis illustrates how grammatical referencing, speech acts, discourse structure, framing, conveyed meaning, and intentionality can be useful, and he describes how these tools affected the outcomes of the particular cases discussed in this book.