Innocence’: Comparing Responses to Criminal Accusations Across Legal and Non- Legal Settings

THE CONSTRUCTION OF ‘INNOCENCE’: COMPARING RESPONSES TO CRIMINAL ACCUSATIONS ACROSS LEGAL AND NON- LEGAL SETTINGS by Louise White A DOCTORAL THESIS Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the award of Doctor of Philosophy at Loughborough University August 2018 © Louise White, 2018 ABSTRACT This thesis explores the discursive construction of ‘innocence’ in responses to criminal accusations across different interactional settings. Constructing ‘innocence’ here refers to the achievement of interactional tasks, such as deflecting or avoiding blame, across both admissions and denials. With the birth of the television and the internet, accountability for a criminal act does not stop and start within legal settings. Suspects may construct ‘innocence’ publicly, and regardless of any legal decision made. It is important to examine this in order to demonstrate the discursive resources accessible to suspects responding to criminal accusations in their specific interactional setting compared to suspects responding to criminal accusations in others. The data acquired for this study therefore comprises police interviews, television journalist interviews, and internet vlogs. The pre-existing and naturally occurring interactions collected each contain an individual’s response to a criminal accusation. These interactions are analysed using discursive psychology (DP) to examine how psychological matters are discursively negotiated as part of suspects’ minimisation of blame. The analysis also explores the role of context, and if and how suspects’ discursive exonerative practices orient to affordances of the interactional setting within which they are performed. The three analytic chapters of this thesis respectively demonstrate how suspects’ responses to criminal accusations: 1) claim epistemic primacy about their level of involvement in the alleged offence; 2) detach the alleged crime from a criminal category, and themselves from incumbency in that category; and 3) claim incumbency in the category ‘victim’. Overall, the findings reveal that suspects utilise the conversational tools of everyday talk available to them, as well as orientations to, or subversions of, the conventions of their setting. The findings in this thesis also demonstrate that the categories of ‘criminal’/ ‘non- criminal’, ‘perpetrator’/ ‘victim’, and ‘guilty’/ ‘innocent’ are not so bifurcated when it comes to their construction in interaction. The thesis extends our understanding of the interactional manifestation of ‘innocence’, particularly the under-researched area of how affordances of different interactional settings (ways in which speakers are enabled or restricted to discursively do something) may be made relevant by the suspects. It significantly examines different ways suspects can respond to criminal accusations in the era of the internet, comparing public, non- legal settings with the police interview setting, and how these can happen because of what is discursively and technologically available to the suspects here. This thesis addresses these 1 matters for the first time, thus contributing to the field of DP by demonstrating how psychological business and categorisation is discursively built in suspects’ interactions across both legal and non-legal settings. 2 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to start by thanking my supervisors for their valuable guidance throughout my doctoral studies. Firstly, thank you to Professor Charles Antaki. Your generous offer to be my supervisor, as well as your constant belief in me (especially during those times when I did not believe in myself) have allowed me this fantastic opportunity, and I am so grateful for it. Thank you for the friendly and thoughtful conversations about my various chapter drafts, for letting me sit in my favourite chair in your office, and for always being in my corner. Secondly, thank you to Professor Elizabeth Stokoe. The thorough feedback you have given me as my second supervisor has helped me achieve a higher quality of work, and is very much appreciated. Thanks also for granting me access to your collection of police interview data. I would like to thank other members of staff at Loughborough University, past and present, who have supported me in the completion of this thesis. I would like to thank Professor Susan Wilkinson, my supervisor throughout my undergraduate degree, who I first approached with the idea of applying to do a PhD, and who guided me through the process of writing my research proposal. Thanks to Scott Varney, and to my supervisors Charles and Liz, who also gave me advice in the early stages of my application. I would like to thank the School of Social, Political and Geographical Sciences for awarding me with a research studentship, without which my doctoral studies would not have been possible. Thanks also to Professor Elizabeth Peel, Dr Iris Wigger, Professor Paul Drew, and Dr Jessica Robles, who have all given helpful guidance at various points throughout the last three years. I would like to thank all the staff and students at the Discourse and Rhetoric Group (DARG); it has been great to be a part of such an enthusiastic and welcoming group with shared interests, and it was a pleasure to coordinate DARG sessions during the final year of my PhD. Thanks also to all those I have met at various EMCA events; thanks for your thoughts, comments, and questions, all of which have strengthened my work enormously. I would like to thank my fellow Loughborough PhD students who I have shared this experience with, who have made it enjoyable, and who I am so happy to call my friends. Thank you to Ann, Anthony, Bogdana, Claire, Emily, Fabio, Jack, Jamie, Joe, Kat, Lin, Marc, Mirko, Shani, Siân, Sophie, Thais, and Yuening. You are all brilliant and I cannot wait to read more of your work in the future. I would like to thank my all friends from Buxton and Loughborough who are now scattered across the country. Thank you for making my life brighter and for reminding me 3 that there is a world outside the word-limit of this thesis. All the get-togethers, cinema trips, meals out, shopping sessions, and board game nights helped me switch off from being a PhD student for a while and let me just be Louise. I would also like to thank Sean who, since meeting last year, has become so important to me; thanks for being so wonderfully you, for loving me as I am, and for all the special memories we share. Lastly, thank you to my family. To Ellen for being the most incredible big sister and friend I could wish for. You are (and always have been) a role model to me; your intelligence and warmth is an inspiration. I would also like to thank my amazing Mum and Dad for your constant love and support in all things. You taught me and Ellen so much while we were growing up, but that it is most important: to be kind; to do your best, because your best is good enough; and to pursue the things in life that make you happy. There were times when I really thought that I would not be able to finish this, or that I was stupid for even trying, but knowing that you would be proud of me either way made this overwhelming task seem much less scary. I feel so fortunate to have you as my family; thank you for all you have done, and continue to do, for me. 4 CONTENTS Abstract.....................................................................................................................................1 Acknowledgements...................................................................................................................3 Contents ....................................................................................................................................5 Introduction ..............................................................................................................................8 Chapter One: Studying Innocence in Interaction ...............................................................13 1.0 Introduction ........................................................................................................................13 1.1 Innocence as a Topic of Research ......................................................................................15 1.1.1 Definitions of innocence .....................................................................................15 1.1.2 Cognitive approaches to innocence and language...............................................18 1.2 Discursive Approach to Fact Construction and Management of Accountability...............20 1.2.1 Fact construction .................................................................................................22 1.2.2 Management of accountability ............................................................................24 1.3 Discursive Research of Suspects’ Interactional Settings ...................................................27 1.3.1 Discursive analyses of the police interview setting ............................................28 1.3.2 Discursive analyses of public or non-legal settings ............................................29 1.4 Studying Affordances across Interactional Settings ..........................................................35 1.4.1 Defining ‘affordances’ ........................................................................................36 1.4.1.1 Physical/ technological affordances..............................................................................37 1.4.1.2 Socially normative affordances .....................................................................................39

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