Deceptive Ambiguity by Police and Prosecutors

by Shuy, Roger W.

• ISBN13: 9780190669898
• ISBN10: 0190669896
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2017-10-03
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Author Biography

Roger Shuy founded and chaired the sociolinguistics PhD program at Georgetown University, during which time he also co-founded the annual meeting of NWAV and co-founded the American Association of Applied Linguistics. He worked on some 500 criminal and civil law cases, testifying in federal and state jurisdictions as well as before the US Congress and the International Criminal Tribunal. He has published 15 books about forensic linguistics and served as series editor of Oxford University Press series, Oxford Studies in Language and Law.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction
2. Power, ambiguity, and deception
3. Police interviewers use deceptive ambiguity
4. Prosecutors use deceptive ambiguity
5. Undercover agents use deceptive ambiguity
6. Cooperating witnesses use deceptive ambiguity
7. Complainants use deceptive ambiguity
8. Deceptive ambiguity in the language elements
9. The effects, frequency, and power of the government's
uses of deceptive ambiguity in criminal investigations

Appendix A: Deceptive ambiguity created by socio-cultural differences
References