About ‘aboutness’: Opening & closing statements of Minnesota v. Chauvin

Speaker: Natalie Jones (University of Leeds)

Title: About ‘aboutness’ in the opening and closing statements of State of Minnesota v. Derek Michael Chauvin (2021)

Abstract:

This talk presents findings from research on the State of Minnesota v. Derek Chauvin trial (2021), examining the positioning and transformation of key narrative events, social actor identities, and the jury. A comparative analysis of the opening statements and closing arguments draws on concepts of ‘aboutness’ (e.g., Scott, 2017) and positioning theory (Davies & Harré, 1990) to explore how linguistic choices shape courtroom narratives. Using a bottom-up approach to comparatively examine lexical and grammatical collocations identified in the speeches, each barriser’s narrative focus is examined, utilising critical discourse analysis (CDA) and corpus linguistics (CL), using AntConc 3.6.9 (Anthony, 2020).While previous studies (e.g., Felton-Rosulek, 2010; Chaemsaithong, 2017) have focused on either openings or closings, comparing both seeks to identify shifts in lawyer talk and its impact on how events, actors, and the jury are framed from the beginning to the end of the trial. The analysis is twofold: (1) examining the strategic positioning of the jury, and (2) highlighting the role of function words (such as ‘the’ and ‘and’) in shaping perspective, showing how lawyer talk positions the jury to view the police, the victim, the defendant, and expert opinion from different perspectives in texts that bookend the trial.

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Theory of Social Behaviour. 20(1), pp.43–63.

Felton-Rosulek, L. 2010. Prosecution and defense closing speeches The creation of contrastive closing arguments. In: Coulthard, M., May, A. eds. The Routledge Handbook of Forensic Linguistics. London: Routledge, pp.218–230.

Scott, M. 2017. News downloads and aboutness [Online]. [Accessed 15 July 2023]. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FVa0KwtvLc