You Might Win the Battle but Lose the War: Multimodal, Interactive, and Extralinguistic Aspects of Witness Resistance

In this study, the author considers several limitations in current research in the field of legal discourse: a static rather than interactive view of language, a focus on questioners/attorneys over answerers/witnesses, and a concern with verbal resources instead of an integration of verbal and visual or multimodal communicative practices (e.g., gaze, facial expression, body alignment, and realignment). Analyzing an excerpt from a crucial witness in a rape trial, the author considers the neglected role of multimodal and interactive legal discourse and how the witness implements numerous discursive and extralinguistic resources for manipulating, negotiating, and resisting the putative asymmetry of the trial speech exchange system. In the process the author provides a glimpse of not just intricate laminations of participation, but dynamic laminations of power as both attorney and witness negotiate epistemological relations and co-construct identity in the rape trial.