Stereotypes of Witness Perception as the Basis for Speech Manipulation in Englishlanguage Judicial Discourse (Based on the Materials of the British National Corpora)

The article is devoted to the problem of speech manipulation in the English-speaking judicial discourse. It turns out that lawyers tend to manipulate witnesses testimony while interrogating them. They do it with the help of diff erent communicative strategies and tactics choosing specifi c linguistic means thus getting the necessary testimony for the purpose of winning the case. The article
shows that in the English-speaking linguistic consciousness there exist stereotypes of a witness that help lawyers to manipulate their speech behaviour. The article provides the analysis of the British National Corpora that reveal defi nite traits in the speech behaviour of witnesses that give the basis for the lawyers’ manipulation. As a result the article suggests the classifi cation of the communicative types of witnesses from the point of view of speech manipulation. The benefits of the study will be useful for the further analysis of the manipulative potential of judicial discourse.