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Journal of Pragmatics 119 (2017) 1--14
www.elsevier.com/locate/pragma

Speech reporting in courtroom opening statements

Krisda Chaemsaithong
Department of English, Hanyang University, 222 Wangsimni, Humanities # 203, Seongdong-Gu, Seoul 04763, South Korea
Received 22 August 2016; received in revised form 3 August 2017; accepted 4 August 2017

Abstract
This investigation critically analyzes the practice of speech reporting in the monologic genre of the opening statement. Drawing on the
opening statements of three high-profile trials, this study analyzes the form, function, and frequency of reported utterances that manifest
within the opening statement. The findings reveal that the opening statement is a highly heteroglossic genre, and the inclusion of voices is
pragmatically motivated, serving five functions: narrative, evidential, disaligning, contextualizing, and discourse organizing. Reanimation
of voices not only enables lawyers to create and negotiate different realities but also contributes to making the opening statement
essentially argumentative.
© 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Courtroom discourse; Function of reported speech; Monolog; Opening statement; Speech reporting

1. Introduction

Recent discourse-pragmatic studies have revealed that an important characteristic of courtroom discourse is its multi-
voiced and interactive nature (Galatolo and Mizzau, 2005; Galatolo, 2007; Vazquez-Orta, 2010; Garzone and Degano,
2012; Chaemsaithong, 2014; Garzone, 2016). That courtroom discourse can be considered essentially ‘‘polyphonous’’ in
the sense of Ducrot (1984), or ‘‘heteroglossic’’ and ‘‘interactionally dialogic’’ in the sense of Bakhtin (1981) does not
necessarily mean that there must always be an actual dialog between speakers, but rather that it incorporates and
articulates a multiplicity of speaking perspectives and ideologies, resulting in the implicit or explicit presence of several
enunciations in a single discourse.
Among many means by which dialogism and polyphony may be linguistically realized (e.g., irony, discourse markers,
presuppositions, and footing), the practice of incorporating segments of speech of another author into a new text, or speech
reporting, appears to constitute a critical factor influencing the trial outcome for both evidentiary/epistemic (Philips, 1986;
Baffy and Marsters, 2015) and affective reasons (Matoesian, 2000, 2001). The former concerns the support that a voice can
lend to an argument, due to the fact that it allows a reporter to accomplish a change in footing1 (Goffman, 1981; Levinson,
1988). The latter augments the speaker-listener relationship, enabling the audience to ‘‘relive’’ the actions, emotions, and
events of the reported situation (Matoesian, 2001, p. 106). However, to date, studies on speech reporting in courtroom

E-mail address: krisda@hanyang.ac.kr.

1
Footing, in the sense of Goffman (1981, p. 128), refers to ‘‘the alignment we take up to ourselves and the others present as expressed in the
way we manage the production or reception of an utterance.’’ That is, footing is the projection of a speaker's stance toward an utterance, including
its truth value and emotional content (Levinson, 1988). In re-presenting the speech of another person, the reporter assumes not only the role of
‘‘author’’ of his or her own speech event, but also the role of ‘‘animator’’ of the character whose speech is being re-produced.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2017.08.003
0378-2166/© 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
2 K. Chaemsaithong / Journal of Pragmatics 119 (2017) 1--14

discourse have focused almost exclusively on witness examination and cross-examination (see Rosulek, 2010, however).
This, in turn, limits our view of the extent to which courtroom discourse is polyphonous and interactionally dialogic.
The current study, therefore, seeks to address this gap and explicate the process of speech reporting by exploring the
understudied monologic genre of the opening statement, where lawyers from each side have the opportunity to introduce
the jury to their party's competing theory of the case. In particular, this study analyzes the form, function, and frequency of
different voices that manifest within the opening statement. Drawing on the opening statements of three high-profile trials,
the quantitative and qualitative analysis is guided by four questions: (1) Which forms are used? (2) Whose voices are
quoted? (3) What functions do quotations serve? and (4) To what extent do the two sides differ in the use of quotations?
This study begins by outlining the discursive characteristics of the opening statement and its role within the trial and
proceeds to discuss theoretical issues regarding speech reporting and courtroom discourse. The findings will then be
presented and discussed in detail. It will be shown that the opening statement is highly heteroglossic, and the inclusion of
voices is pragmatically motivated, serving five functions: narrative, evidential, disaligning, contextualizing, and discourse
organizing. Reanimation of voices not only enables lawyers to create and negotiate different realities but also contributes
to making the opening statement essentially argumentative. Not only do the findings illuminate the nature and frequency
of speech reporting practices in the genre of the opening statement in particular and in the courtroom in general, but the
functional approach adopted in this study, which considers a re-animated strip of speech based on its function in a
particular context, also makes methodological contributions to scholarship on speech reporting within a pragmatic
perspective.

2. Opening statement

Setting aside voir dire, the opening statement constitutes the first opportunity for the trier of fact to hear a
comprehensive statement of each party's factual claims. Hence, it is counsel's first interaction with the jury. This
phase of a trial starts with the party with the burden of proof (i.e., the plaintiff's attorney in a civil trial or the
prosecution in a criminal trial) and is then followed by the defense's presentation. In an adversarial system, when the
defense takes up the ball, they try to construct facts to suggest either a counter-narrative, or the weakness of the
prosecution's narrative. The narrative construction in this initial phase will later influence the type of facts that counsel
will try to construct from the witness examination and that the defense will try to deconstruct in their cross-
examinations. Although delivered early in the trial, its impact can be decisive. It has been suggested that many jurors
draw at least tentative conclusions at this initial stage (Lind and Ke, 1985; Pennington and Hastie, 1991; Spiecker
and Worthington, 2003). As a result, the opening statement, while not mandatory, is seldom waived because it offers
a valuable opportunity to provide an overview of the case to the jury and to explain the anticipated proof that will be
presented in later parts of the trial.
Generally speaking, the opening statement allows attorneys from both sides to introduce themselves and the
parties involved in the lawsuit, outline the important facts of the case in the form of narratives, explain the applicable
law, and make a request for a verdict. However, what makes the discourse of the opening statement distinct is its
dual character, namely, highly persuasive, and yet non-argumentative. The official website of the US federal courts
states that ‘‘although opening statements should be as persuasive as possible, they should not include arguments’’
(Administrative Office of the US Courts), as this part of the trial is limited to outlining the facts and is intended to be
informative, rather than argumentative. Similarly, the Supreme Court characterizes the opening statement as
‘‘ordinarily intended to do no more than to inform the jury in a general way of the nature of the action and defense so
that they may be better prepared to understand the evidence’’ (Best v. District of Columbia 291 U.S. 411, 54 S. Ct.
487, 78 L. Ed. 882 [1934]; emphasis added). What this means in practice is that to create a successful opening
statement, lawyers need to arouse the interest of jurors, build rapport, and, at the same time, come close to being
argumentative (Tanford, 2009, p. 147). They can, for instance, offer a discussion of the anticipated evidence and
‘‘facts’’ they intend to prove, but they cannot assert personal opinions, comment about the evidence, discuss how to
apply the law to the facts, or arouse the emotions of the jurors by making negative judgments about the other party in
scurrilous terms (such as ‘‘a liar’’). In reality, however, such limits are hard to enforce, so they are usually left to the
discretion of the judge. Indeed, research has found that the strategic lexical choices made in the opening statement
can help prime the jury into viewing the events and participants in the intended way. Cotterill (2003) demonstrates
that the prosecution's choice of words such as ‘‘encounter’’ and ‘‘control’’ was central to the conceptualization of O.J.
Simpson, the defendant, as a violent man capable of murder whereas the defense preferred more neutral words,
such as ‘‘incident,’’ ‘‘dispute,’’ ‘‘discussion,’’ and ‘‘conversation’’ to lexicalize the talk in the Simpson household,
thereby refuting the defendant's capacity for murder and violence. In a similar way, this study will show how speech
reporting enables lawyers to be persuasive while appearing non-argumentative.
 K. Chaemsaithong / Journal of Pragmatics 119 (2017) 1--14 3

The discursive characteristics and constraints of the opening statement are different from those of witness examination
in a number of ways. First, instead of being display talk (Goffman, 1981), where the judge and the public have an
overhearing role (Levinson, 1988; Galatolo, 2014), the opening statement is, objectively speaking, a monolog2 delivered
to a silent audience with no interruptions by other participants (except when the opposing counsel raises objections for
possible misconduct). Second, while witness examination is a jointly negotiated discourse created by the lawyer and the
witnesses, the opening statement can be argued to manifest the lawyers’ complete control over the linguistic choices,
thereby exhibiting pragmatic awareness of the audience and their needs. Third, the opening statement is directed
specifically to the jurors, instead of only being performed in their presence. Finally, the narrative presented in the opening
statement is in large part woven into one unified speech, rather than fragmented stories (Harris, 2001). As such, the
opening statement is a discursive event which is intrinsically argumentative as both parties, the prosecution and the
defense, construct two different versions of the facts, and in each version, reported speech plays an important role. It is
precisely how voices are woven into these differential constructions and what functions multiple voices serve that will be
explored in subsequent sections.

3. Literature review: speech reporting and courtroom discourse

Research on speech reporting appears to have two research orientations: the formal and functional aspects of reported
speech. The former is concerned mainly with the grammatical or contextual factors that differentiate direct and indirect
speech. Included in this group are studies by Coulmas (1986) and Li (1966) that discuss five syntactic differences
between the two ways of representation: (1) pronominalization, (2) place and time deixis, (3) verb tense, (4) presence of a
complementizer, such as that, and (5) intonation. Thus, direct speech is seen as being more accurate than its indirect
counterpart because it ‘‘is not the reporter's speech but remains the reported speaker's speech’’ (Coulmas, 1986, p. 2).
However, in critically examining the interrelationships between speech reporting and the reporting context, other studies
(e.g., Tannen, 1989; Clark and Gerrig, 1990; Mayes, 1990) have argued that when speech in one context is repeated in
another, it is fundamentally changed even if ‘‘reported’’ accurately, and what presents itself as direct speech is really
‘‘constructed dialogue’’ (Tannen, 1989). Mayes (1990) offers evidence in support of this claim, showing that about half of
the 320 direct quotes in her conversational narrative data do not represent actual prior utterances, but were in fact
invented. Evidence also exists that the structural and functional distinctions between direct and indirect speech are not
always clear-cut (Calsamiglia and Lopez Ferrero, 2003, p. 154; Holt and Cliff, 2007, p. 11), and both indirect and direct
reporting can perform similar functions. For example, Günthner (1997) demonstrates that indirect speech, in contrast to
Coulmas's (1986) and Li's (1986) claims, can also incorporate expressive features such as the angry voice of the reporting
speaker into the quoted content.
The second strand of research shifts the focus from form to function. For instance, Labov (1972) shows that instead of
making explicit comments on a particular issue, storytellers use direct quotations as an evaluative device in storytelling,
while Brown and Levinson (1987, p.122) consider direct quotes a positive politeness strategy because the quoter makes
only minimal adjustments to the source texts without adding interpretations, thereby establishing a shared common
perspective with the hearer and involving him or her as part of the story. In contrast, indirect speech reporting conveys
negative politeness because the adjustment of the story to the hearer's point of view is one form of speaker-hearer
distancing. In this way, indirect speech signals distance and less participation. Another communicative function of speech
reporting is evidentiality. A case in point is Holt (1996), who documents the use of direct speech as an effective and
economical device for providing evidence in conversation because direct speech enables the recipient to witness the
(past) discursive event for him or herself, and this in effect makes the discourse objective. Finally, Bublitz (2015) includes
the following additional pragmatic functions of reported discourse, as seen in different genres: sharing and negotiating
content, creating coherence, and establishing and maintaining group identity.
In the context of courtroom discourse, Philips (1986) studies reported speech as evidence in an American trial and
argues that indirect speech is used for background information, whereas direct quotes are used as evidence of the
defendant's guilt in relation to certain aspects of the crime. It is further suggested that lawyers tend to take advantage of
the impression of laypeople that direct quotes are more exact, factual and reliable, but reported speech may seriously
misrepresent some of the facts.
Matoesian (2000, 2001) examines the relationship between reported and reporting speech events during witness
examination, focusing on how the reporting voice subtly leaks into the voice of the reported speaker. In effect, the reporting

2
As the reviewer convincingly points out, the opening statement is not---from an interactional point of view---a monolog because the lawyer
clearly addresses the jury. I agree with this point. However, objectively speaking, it is not a dialog either, in the sense that the jury cannot talk back
to the lawyer.
4 K. Chaemsaithong / Journal of Pragmatics 119 (2017) 1--14

voice becomes an emotive trial strategy that endows utterances with authority. The researcher provides a short extract
from the opening statement to show how the lawyer describes what the victim did and said after a rape incident.
She [the victim] goes into the house...and makes a call to her friend Ann Mercer who is an acquaintance. That's the
first time they have ever gone out together... She doesn’t call anyone in her family...the police...any relative...but she
calls Ann Mercer, and says ‘‘I’ve been raped. Come and pick me up.’’ (Matoesian, 2001, p.113)
This example offers a glimpse of how the grammatical features of the direct quote merge with gender ideology (i.e. that
a woman should display the emotional trauma of rape verbally) to project a layered dialog of voices. First, the quoted
clause is embedded within an evaluative matrix clause (i.e., ‘‘She doesn’t call anyone in her family...but she calls Ann
Mercer’’) to suggest that when women are raped, they should contact the police or some family member, rather than a
mere acquaintance. Second, the quoted clause is re-animated without any affective intonation, which is indicative of an
oddly prosaic, even cavalier, way to talk about what had transpired.
Galatolo and Mizzau (2005), Galatolo and Drew (2006), and Galatolo (2007) examined direct reported speech and find
that it performs evidentiary, contextualizing, and emotional functions for witnesses. They examine how lay witnesses, who
are legally barred from expressing their opinions about facts, may resort to direct reported speech to objectify their
subjective evaluations, thereby defending themselves. In analyzing how a lawyer can indirectly allocate blame to
defendants during cross- examination, Baffy and Marsters (2015) show that constructed dialog, which highlights what
defendants should have done but failed to do, is a powerful tool that adds evidential weight to claims.
In the context of closing arguments, Rosulek (2010) qualitatively investigates how different voices are represented.
Four functions of reported speech are identified. By drawing upon different voices, an attorney can legitimate,
deauthorize, rephrase, or vividly re-create the voices the other side uses. As a result, lawyers can create opposing
arguments from the same basis of events and participants. Interestingly, with a fine grained analysis of an Italian murder
trial, Galatolo (2015) finds that the witnesses for both parties can obtain opposite effects by quoting the same words.
Reported speech in historical courtroom data appears to function in much the same way. Comparing the grammatical
features that two sixteenth-century defendants use in their testimonies, Wlodarczyk (2007) finds that the successful
defendant exercised manipulative and persuasive strategies, including the frequent use of the emphatic do and the
imperative together with reported speech for authoritative functions, while the unsuccessful defendant's speech showed
lower frequencies of these features. In two Victorian trials, Johnson (2015) finds that the prosecution used quoting as a
strategy to expose and support the guilt of the accused, while the defense used quotations in the service of revealing the
accused's inability to commit an offense, confirming the argumentative function of reporting.
While the above studies greatly inform the current study, the scope is mostly limited to direct reporting in a single trial,
and no study has focused on speech reporting in the opening statement; therefore, only a partial mapping of the practice of
speech reporting in courtroom discourse has been offered. What is more, it remains unclear how to identify the functions of
reported speech, as the decision of each researcher is to some extent subjective. This in turn poses a problem for
comparing quotes in different sets of data. Therefore, while building on the findings of previous studies, this study goes
beyond by integrating linguistic and contextual clues in identifying the functions of reported speech in courtroom
discourse. This methodological issue will be discussed in the next section.

4. Data and methodology

4.1. Data

The data in this study consists of publicly available transcripts from three American trials, hence six opening
statements in total. These cases were selected because of their very high visibility. Involving many hundreds of hours of
witness and defendant evidence, these cases are likely to be gold mines for studying the full range of voices that lawyers
orchestrate for successful presentation. Below I provide a short description for each trial along with its key aspects and the
key characters involved.

Case 1: Commonwealth of Virginia v. Lee Boyd Malvo (2003) (18,843 words)

The case involves a 17-year-old defendant who stood trial for his role in the 2002 sniper attacks around
Washington, D.C. He, together with 42-year-old Muhammad, killed ten people and wounded three others. The
defense team proffers the theory that the teenaged Malvo was brainwashed into killing people by Muhammad,
who he had met and bonded with like father and son, claiming that it was Malvo's nature to be obedient to people
he loved and respected. The prosecutor therefore had to persuade the jurors that indoctrination did not occur,
and Malvo voluntarily acted on his own. In the end, Malvo was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison without
parole (while Muhammad faced the death sentence in a separate trial).
 K. Chaemsaithong / Journal of Pragmatics 119 (2017) 1--14 5

Case 2: The State of California v. Michael Jackson (2005) (36,257 words)

The prosecution started the investigation after the broadcast of ‘‘Living With Michael Jackson,’’ a
documentary in which journalist Martin Bashir interviewed Jackson over a span of 8 months. In the program,
Jackson was shown holding hands with a 13-year-old boy named Gavin Arvizo, and he also acknowledged
having innocent sleepovers with children at his Neverland Ranch. Later, Arvizo complained that he had not
realized that the film would be broadcast all over the world, and as a result, he was teased by his friends. He also
accused Jackson of serving him alcohol disguised in soda cans using the name ‘‘Jesus Juice,’’ introducing
various pornographic materials, and involving him in various sexual acts and talk. The boy's mother, Janet
Arvizo, also accused Jackson of holding the family prisoner at Neverland after the Bashir documentary, with the
motive reportedly being to silence them. While the prosecutor tries to portray Jackson as a serial abuser of young
boys, the defense's strategy was to frame Jackson as the victim of a greedy young mother's plot to extort money
by coaching her son to accuse Jackson. In the end, the jury rendered an acquittal verdict.
Case 3: United States v. Zacarias Moussaoui, an alleged 9/11 co-conspirator (2006) (14,806 words)
Moussaoui, a French citizen, was tried in a United States court on charges of conspiracy in the 9/11 attacks.
Moussaoui's path to arrest started when an instructor at the flight school where he was enrolled became
suspicious of his unusual behaviors, including paying thousands of dollars of tuition fees in cash and adamantly
insisting that he be taught to fly a large passenger plane despite having no previous experience of flying. As a
result, the FBI was informed, leading to Moussaoui's arrest on immigration charges about three weeks before the
9/11 attacks. During the interrogation, Moussaoui did not reveal his connections with al Qaeda. After the attacks,
intelligence officers subsequently found links between Moussaoui and al Qaeda, and the defendant then
admitted to being an al Qaeda member. Thus, from the prosecutor's prospective, the defendant deserved the
death penalty for lying and not revealing the plot, thereby allowing his al-Qaeda's ‘‘brothers’’ to go forward. The
damage of the alleged lies was claimed to be akin to Moussaoui being at the controls in one of the airplanes. The
defense, on the other hand, argued that it was a mere supposition on the other side's part: even if Moussaoui had
revealed the knowledge of al Qaeda's plan, the federal authorities would not have been able to prevent the
attacks anyway, due to an internal intelligence failure. In the end, the jury reached a verdict of life sentence
without parole.

4.2. Methodology

This study follows previous studies in recognizing two traditional forms of reported speech: direct and indirect
reporting.3[2_TD$IF] These categories are useful to the extent that they allow for frequency counts for comparative purposes. It is
also to be acknowledged that the perlocutionary effects of direct reported speech may be stronger in conveying versions
of facts or opinions than those of indirect reporting because direct reporting seemingly simulates objectivity. However, at
the risk of simplifying the analysis, the differences in form will not be the focus of this function-oriented study for two
reasons. Firstly, neither direct nor indirect reporting is an objective representation of a speech event. As we will see, there
are times when speakers produce non-existent, hypothetical voices -- or in Fasulo's (1997) term -- ‘‘fictional’’ reported
speech in both direct and indirect form. Thus, regardless of the form, speech reporting is regarded here as a creative and
powerful tool for framing information. Second, and more importantly, both direct and indirect reporting can be manipulated
to serve similar functions.
With respect to pragmatic functions, this study adopts the assumption that when quoting the speech of others,
presenters do much more than merely reporting or paraphrasing. That is, they take up different positions in relation to the
quoted material while simultaneously appearing to simply reproduce the quotes, and they also give clues to their stance
before, during, and after a quotation (Holt, 2000, pp. 426--427). Although there is no consensus on the functions of
reported speech in courtroom discourse, this study makes use of insights from past studies discussed earlier. In particular,
two main functions are frequently discussed in the literature: narrative and evidentiary functions. To these, I have added
three more: disaligning, discourse organizing, and contextualizing, all of which are recurrent in my data.
In identifying pragmatic functions, I situate an instance of reported speech in its context, rather than isolating just the
quote, as the context strongly determines the sense, and therefore the function of reporting. To begin with, a reported
utterance has a narrative function when it constitutes the speaking turn of a particular character in the lawyer's story,
thereby contributing to the development of her narrative and a new element being introduced into the discourse. Neither is
the quoter concerned about the authority of the original speaker, nor does the truth-value of the reported content matter.

3
In this paper, pure and mixed quotation (such as ‘‘The word ‘anomalous’ has nine letters’’ and ‘‘Ann said that she ‘could care less’ about
spelling’’, respectively) are treated as direct quotes.
6 K. Chaemsaithong / Journal of Pragmatics 119 (2017) 1--14

For example, the lawyer in (1) directly quotes Jackson's expression when describing the time Jackson spent with the child
victim. Here, the quote is part of the complicating action and depicts Jackson as engaging in a verbal action.

1) At one point in time when a female is shown with her shirt up, exposing her breasts, the defendant turns and exclaims:
‘‘Got milk. And on the bed of pussy.’’ (Jackson Pro)

Unlike the narrative function, for a quote to be evidentiary of a reporter's statement, it does not introduce any new
element but further develops an element that has already been introduced. It is the truth-value of the content and the
status of the source that lend support to the presenter's argument. Thus, a quote from an authoritative source, such as an
eyewitness or an authority, is likely to be used as a means to legitimize the presenter's statement. A possible linguistic clue
is the presence of boosters4 in the vicinity of a quote. For example, in order to support his claim that Malvo is an obedient
child (hence, subject to indoctrination), the defense lawyer uses quotes from witnesses who are familiar with him as
evidence. The markers ‘‘every’’ and ‘‘very’’ add weight to the verifiability of the claim, although these are non-existent,
hypothetical voices.

2) Every adult that you will hear from that knew Lee Malvo...if you ask them, Tell me one word---in one word tell me about
that child---they’re going to say obedient. And if you say, okay, you can use two words, they’re going to say very obedient,
and if you give them three, they’ll say very, very obedient. (Malvo Def)

Opposite of the evidential function is the disaligning function, which allows lawyers to distance themselves from the
quoted position and/or the sayer. This disaffiliating move can be used to downplay the authority of a source that is
supposed to support the other side's argument and ultimately deauthorizes a different version of the facts. A disaligning
quote often consists of two elements: a (re)produced voice and projection of the lawyer's disalignment. Linguistic devices
that signal disalignment include concessive or contrastive markers (such as but, although, however) and negative
evaluative markers (such as wrong, false). As (3) shows, the defense is invalidating what the prosecution said about the
defendant.

3) Mr. Spencer [the prosecution] said Moussaoui was a bad pilot. Ladies and gentlemen, he couldn’t fly an airplane at all.
(Moussaoui Def)

A quoted utterance has a discourse organizing function when a lawyer makes an intertextual reference to a prior
segment of voice that has already appeared in a trial, for example, what a judge, the opposing side, or the lawyer herself
said earlier. As a result, the present discourse becomes situated in a cohesive chain of related claims. Syntactic clues
include as...said or according to...

4) Sergeant Robel...found more sexually explicit adult and teenaged themed pornographic, sexually themed magazines.
And by that ‘‘teenaged themed,’’ I mean, when you see them... these young ladies... don’t look 18 years old. (Jackson Pro)

Finally, a quoted utterance has a contextualizing function when a lawyer wants to explain, clarify, or (re)define her
stance. A quoted utterance of this type is usually concerned with clarification of the lawyer's communicative purpose,
evidenced by such markers as for example, this means..., known as, and referred to. Both the discourse organizing and
contextualizing functions are important for a text to be comprehensible and persuasive, as lawyers must recognize the
processing needs and rhetorical preferences of jurors. In 5), the lawyer is paraphrasing the sort of relationship between
Malvo's mother and a man she later met.

5) She got her paramour, an older gentleman in his sixties, what would be referred to here as a ‘‘sugar daddy’’... (Malvo
Def)

Using the above linguistic and contextual clues, I collected and classified instances of reported discourse through a
text-driven, manual approach, excluding instances of thought representation (as in ‘‘He thought they might be asking for
money.’’) and the narrator's representation of a speech act (as in ‘‘Janet starts telling you about her poverty.’’). I then noted
down the frequencies of both the form and function of such instances, and normalized the frequency counts to a common

4
‘‘Booster’’ as used here refers to linguistic expressions that emphasize high commitment to the truth-value of a proposition (such as every,
definitely, clearly). They create an impression of certainty, conviction, and assurance.
 K. Chaemsaithong / Journal of Pragmatics 119 (2017) 1--14 7

basis of 10,000 words to allow for a direct comparison of results for texts of different length. All cases were double-
checked to confirm the initial analysis. Finally, I qualitatively examined the patterns of use of these multiple voices.

5. Findings

The overall frequencies in Table 1 indicates that speech reporting is an integral part of the opening statement,
occurring in every lawyer's discourse. Interestingly, in every trial, the defense seems to rely more on speech reporting than
the prosecution (i.e., about 1.5--2 times). This is perhaps because generally speaking, the defense have much more
flexibility in terms of presentation strategies, which in turn triggers the incorporation of character voices in their discourse.
That is, whereas the prosecutor's role is limited to proving that the accused is guilty by presenting evidence and
introducing witnesses, the defense goes beyond that, and their role may include raising defenses that may be available
and advantageous for the defendant, falsifying or suppressing evidence and witnesses that are not favorable or illegally
obtained, and offering an alternative to the prosecutor's theory of the case.
With respect to the reporting form, there seems to be no straightforward correlation between the party and the direct or
indirect form. The lawyers in Malvo's case prefer to use more direct reporting than indirect reporting, while the lawyers in
the other two trials prefer indirect reporting. A couple of factors may be argued to be involved. First, in Malvo's trial, the
defendant intentionally left messages and notes in different forms at the scenes, and thus the lawyers directly quoted from
these written sources. In the other two trials, the lawyers rely more on witness testimony, which is usually rendered as
indirect reporting. Second, indoctrination is a very controversial issue, and to lay people, it is difficult to conceive that a 17-
year-old teenager was indoctrinated to commit mass murder. Because of this, the lawyers must have felt the need to
dramatize and humanize what people said about the defendant through direct discourse.
Classified according to function (Table 2), the findings exhibit an interesting pattern. For both sides, the narrative
function predominates, followed by the evidential function. When it comes to the disaligning function, the two sides slightly
diverge. This function consistently surfaces in the defense's speech, while it occurs at much lower rates or is absent from
the defense's discourse. This is likely because the defense team's opening statement comes after the prosecution's,
which can then be quoted when the defense is engaged in contesting work to offer an opposing version of facts. In the
case of Moussaoui's prosecuting lawyer (4.26/10,000 words), because the main claim is that the defendant's lies led to the
9/11 attacks, he quotes the defendant's voice in order to emphasize just this point. Finally, the two sides show a similar
pattern with respect to the last two functions, with the discourse organizing function occurring at slightly lower rates than
the contextualizing function. Perhaps this is due to the fact that the opening statement is one of the earliest stages in a trial,
so the intertextual links that can be made are very limited.

Table 1
Frequencies of direct and indirect reporting in each trial (per 10,000 words).

Jackson Moussaoui Malvo Total

P D P D P D

Direct 21.80 40.88 16.84 25.19 25.00 49.39 179.10

Indirect 46.07 54.51 22.85 45.97 16.07 39.05 224.52
Total 67.87 95.39 39.69 71.16 41.07 88.44 403.62

Table 2
Frequency of the reporting function in each trial (per 10,000 words).

Jackson Moussaoui Malvo Total

P D P D P D

Narrative 40.02 54.94 15.59 34.19 19.64 52.54 216.92

Evidential 19.22 24.52 12.75 27.38 16.07 22.59 122.53
Disaligning 1.64 6.69 4.26 5.8 -- 6.06 24.45
Contextualizing 4.52 5.86 4.25 2.2 3.57 4.83 25.23
Discourse organizing 2.47 3.38 2.84 1.59 1.79 2.42 14.49
Total 67.87 95.39 39.69 71.16 41.07 88.44 403.62
8 K. Chaemsaithong / Journal of Pragmatics 119 (2017) 1--14

Having presented the quantitative findings, I proceed to explicate the ways in which speech reporting may be called
upon to serve these functions in the negotiation of meaning and understanding.
5.1. Discourse organizing function

Lawyers reanimate multiple voices to make intertextual references to previous discourses. When referencing what
they themselves said earlier, they create a link that brings previous utterances and claims into the current context,
resulting in a coherent narrative. More than half of the discourse organizing voices found are used this way. In (6), the
prosecuting lawyer references a scene that he has described before the half-time break, thereby connecting the previous
discourse with the current stage of presentation.

6) It's at this point in time that the conversation occurs that I referenced earlier this morning: ‘‘No children; no video. Give us
the video; we’ll give you the children.’’ (Jackson Pro)

Once a connection between the discourse segments is established, lawyers can highlight the main points of their
arguments and how they may have proven them throughout the trial. In (7), toward the end of his presentation, the lawyer
quotes a question the team received, along with the response. In this case, he can stress the claim that it is a case of
indoctrination, as opposed to malice aforethought.

7) We’ve been asked: How will we persuade you as jurors to accept our theory of this case, and our answer is and has
been: We shouldn’t have to persuade you. The evidence should persuade you. The picture will be so clear that the degree
of indoctrinization so great that it would cry out to you... (Malvo Def)

More critically, despite being the ‘‘same’’ voice, the original meaning and significance of the re-presented voice is
subject to being negotiated and reinterpreted in such a way that it fits the presenter's goal (Galatolo, 2015). This strategy is
at work in (8), where the defense lawyer quotes the prosecutor's evidence just to make a damaging comment about it
(‘‘and they did nothing with it’’). In doing so, he transforms the prosecutor's supportive evidence into a problem, which in
effect echoes his main claim that, despite the availability of intelligence, government agencies were negligent. Similarly, in
(9), the defense lawyer reproduces the prosecutor's point that Janet Arvizo lied so as to subsequently construct her as an
untrustworthy person. This fact is indeed critical for the defense team, as it can be used to de-authorize her testimony in
the present case, and at the same time, it is so damaging to the prosecution that they mentioned it in passing.

8) Mr. Spencer told you they had evidence that Moussaoui went to Pakistan. Ladies and gentlemen, they had evidence
that Moussaoui went to Afghanistan where Bin Laden trains his terrorists and they had that information before 9.11 and
they did nothing with it. (Moussaoui Def)

9) First of all, the prosecutor alluded to a deposition where he said she admittedly lied. He didn’t tell you the details. Let me
tell you some of them. (Jackson Def)

5.2. Contextualizing function

During an opening statement, it is quite important to establish the context for jurors to achieve a shared understanding of
who they are, and what they are doing in the courtroom. A contextualizing voice can be used just for this purpose, as it
foregrounds or makes relevant certain aspects of background knowledge while underplaying others. Accounting for over
seventy per cent, one major way in which lawyers may use a voice for contextualization is when they elaborate an idea or
reformulate a previous utterance to facilitate comprehension. For instance, in the beginning of his speech, the lawyer in (10)
quotes a layman's definition of an opening statement in order to situate the audience in the present context and simplify a
legal procedure for their understanding. In (11), the lawyer quotes the term ‘‘wall’’ and explains its specialized meaning, as
he is trying to argue that intelligence failure on the part of the government constitutes the root cause of the 9/11 attacks.

10) Now, an opening statement, as I think you all know, is generally thought to be an outline or a preview of what's to come.
It's often described as a blueprint of what the evidence will be like in court. (Jackson Def)

11) Another pre-9/11 fact of life for our government was something known as ‘‘the wall.’’ Now, most of you don’t know
what ‘‘the wall’’ is, and it is complicated, but I will tell you it generally was---it is gone now---an artificial barrier that kept
intelligence investigations from sharing information with criminal prosecutors and sometimes vice versa. (Moussaoui
Def)
 K. Chaemsaithong / Journal of Pragmatics 119 (2017) 1--14 9

In addition, a contextualizing voice allows lawyers to furnish their prior statement with what may be thought of as a
demonstrative example. This is a central aspect of exposition, so that lawyers can make their arguments accessible and
concrete. Jackson's prosecuting lawyer in (12) invokes a contextualizing voice as he is describing the reactions of the
media upon seeing the Bashir video. Note that this is a non-existent voice, presented simply to conjure up the concept of
‘‘pressure’’ being referred to. Similarly, the lawyer in (13) provides a direct quote with the reporting frame ‘‘in his words’’ to
give a seemingly solid reference to his claim of Malvo's financial motive.

12) The school officials are getting very antsy. They’re also getting pressure by the media. ‘‘What are you doing about
this? What are you doing about this?’’ (Jackson Pro)

13) He [Malvo] believed and Muhammad believed that the government would quit and give them the money. In his words,
they wanted $10 million to ‘‘Stop the body bags. Give us the money. We will stop the body bags.’’ (Malvo Pro)

5.3. Disaligning function

Lawyers can reproduce an utterance to take issue with the authority of the sayer or the truth-value of the reported
utterance, thereby showing a disaffiliating move. Such an opposing voice has a peculiar effect in that it not only
shows disagreement with the quoted utterance but also aids in the demonstration that the counterpart version of
reality is not to be trusted. The most straightforward way to show disalignment with a voice is to explicitly
problematize the truth-value of the reported utterance. By ‘‘explicit,’’ I mean that they outrightly deny the validity of the
reported utterance and supply what they consider the ‘‘right’’ information. Such an explicit cancelation of the truth-
value occurs most frequently (approximately seventy per cent). In (14), the defense lawyer not only problematizes the
term used by the prosecutor but also implies that the prosecutor's version of facts is not credible.

14) Incidentally, the prosecutor talked about a videotaped interview with the family, and he used the word ‘‘scripted.’’...Not
only is that not true, I invite you to watch it. (Jackson Def)

Alternatively, they may also falsify characters in their narratives. This can be seen in (15), where the lawyer signals his
difference in attitude early on through the verb ‘‘claim’’ and, subsequently, the contrastive marker ‘‘but’’ and factual noun
‘‘evidence’’, thereby invalidating what the FBI had said and, in effect, the prosecution's theory of the case. Similarly in (16), the
prosecutor explicitly contests Malvo's testimony of not remembering through a negating clause ‘‘there is no way in the world...’’.

15) The FBI claims they are performing 70 full field investigations of known al Qaeda members in our country on August
6th, 2001, but the evidence will be, sadly, that the government did nothing with this information. (Moussaoui Def)

16) Many times on those tapes, ‘‘I don’t remember that.’’ He did not remember such things as what color the guy's shirt was
that he shot or what color the guy's car was that he shot, but he told them so many specific facts that we submit on the
evidence that will be before you there is no way in the world that he does not know what he did, how he did it and why he did
it. (Malvo Pro).

In a more subtle way, lawyers can signal disagreement with a voice through pragmatic implicature. This is evident in
(17), where the lawyer flouts the maxim of quality. Contradicting what ‘‘imprisonment’’ entails, appositives indicating
freedom and a carefree lifestyle (i.e., ‘‘a luxury hotel,’’ ‘‘a very nice hotel’’), the addition clause ‘‘and went back every time,’’
and the adjective ‘‘terrible (period)’’ are linguistic cues that contribute to implicating that Janet Arvizo's claim of being
imprisoned is groundless. Subsequently, the lawyer creates another implicature through the stark contrast between
‘‘terrible’’ (period) and the self-pampering activities she indulged herself in during that period. As a result, Janet appears as
an untrustworthy witness.

17) She says she was falsely imprisoned at the Turnberry Resort in Florida, a luxury hotel where Michael Jackson was
staying. She says she was falsely imprisoned at the Calabasas Inn, a very nice hotel in Calabasas, and she says that
she was falsely imprisoned three times at Neverland and went back every time...Let's go through what she was
buying and what was ultimately billed to Michael Jackson during this terrible period of false imprisonment: February
14th, 2003: Full leg wax at Bare Skin Salon for $50; a lip wax; a bikini wax. Has her face done at Aromatherapy Day
Spa... (Jackon Def)
10 K. Chaemsaithong / Journal of Pragmatics 119 (2017) 1--14

Finally, lawyers can falsify reported utterances with their own logic. In (18), in his attempt to invalidate the opposing
side's main argument that Moussaoui's lies directly caused the 9/11 attacks to go undetected, the defense lawyer first
shows consideration for the other side's position by presenting the non-existent voice of Moussaoui in an irrealis
conditional clause (‘‘could have told’’). However, he then retracts that position and closes off all the possibilities
associated with that subjunctive clause through a contrastive clause with the marker ‘‘but.’’ This resonates with his own
theory of the case that government intelligence agencies, not Moussaoui, are to blame. He continues to use the non-
existent voice of an unidentified sayer, along with the negatively evaluated voice of the government (i.e., ‘‘claims’’), to
logically question the efficacy of the government's counter-terrorism moves. All in all, the prosecution's side of the story is
refuted.

18) Moussaoui could have told the FBI that Bin Laden was determined to strike the United States and that al Qaeda
intended to hijack the planes, but the government already knew that much and more. And who is to say that any
government official would have believed anything that Moussaoui said anyway and launched the flawless investigation
the government claims it would have launched? (Moussaoui Def)

5.4. Evidentiary function

Lawyers draw upon the authority of the original speaker as a means to enhance the persuasiveness and legitimacy of
their theories of the case. More than eighty per cent of the evidentiary voices are used to present a preview of the
anticipated testimony and evidence, presenting voices from key witnesses whose testimony is favorable to their side. In
(19), the voices of eyewitnesses serve as evidence to support one of the lawyer's themes that Neverland is not a visitor-
friendly place. In (20), an expert witness's voice is used to identify Malvo as directly involved in the killings. In (21), the
lawyer quotes the National Security Agency's and the FBI agent's notes to point out that despite being warned, the
government failed to preempt the 9/11 attacks.

19) Several of the witnesses in this case are going to tell you that some of the young visitors at the ranch that stay on and
that visit with Mr. Jackson, and who are there on a prolonged basis begin to change because of the personality of the
ranch. That it creates a no-rules, no-restriction, no-wants environment. And people who walk in there with manners walk
out and can be described by some of the staff as hellions, rude, obnoxious. (Jackson Pro)

20) We will present to you an expert in the field of DNA which will tell you his [Malvo's] DNA is on the Zip Loc Bag. That
same expert will testify his DNA was found on the gun and all over the trunk of that automobile. (Malvo Pro)

21) In that summer the National Security Agency alone issued separate warnings that an attack was coming. An alert FBI
agent named Ken Williams wrote a report that said he had determined that large numbers of fundamentalist Muslim young
males were obtaining flight training in the United States. (Moussaoui Def)

In addition to personal witnesses, lawyers may quote impersonal voices, including the law and written evidence (e.g.,
letters or newspapers). In (22), the lawyer makes use of the constitution to legitimate not only his evaluation of what is
considered justice, but also his request for the jurors to judge accordingly. Note that this request appears as being dictated
to them by the law, rather than as originating from the lawyer himself. In (23), the quoted message functions as the
evidence that Malvo could not have been brainwashed to commit the crime.

22) Our constitution also requires that persons charged with capital offenses, even admitted al Qaeda terrorists, be
provided with court-appointed lawyers when they can’t afford them. It is said that our justice system can only be judged by
how it treats the poorest, the most despicable person who is charged with the most heinous of crime. (Moussaoui Def)

23) It was at this shooting that the intent of Malvo and Muhammad became clear. He left tacked to a tree, a four-page
message, where they use the same code: ‘‘For you, Mr. Police. Call me God. Do not release to the press.’’ (Malvo Pro)

Lawyers may also draw upon a cultural reference, so that they can take advantage of the authority of such a communal
voice. This is usually a culturally or socially accepted source or norm. As 24) shows, owing to Malvo's cultural heritage, the
defense lawyer quotes the Jamaican saying ‘‘save the eye,’’ which is adopted by Jamaican parents and teachers alike, in
order to provide evidence that Malvo was raised to become obedient (to the extent that he was subjected to
indoctrination).
 K. Chaemsaithong / Journal of Pragmatics 119 (2017) 1--14 11

24) They have a saying in Jamaica that describes the form of childrearing that was used by Lee's mother and many of his
caretakers. It's called ‘‘save the eye’’...Some Jamaican high school teachers would point out to you that it is preserved in
the constitution of Jamaica the right of discipline. (Malvo Def)

Finally, there are cases where the truth-value of the quoted utterance or the authority of the speaker is not so much of
an issue. What matters instead is the desired legitimating effect. In 25), as the lawyer endeavors to legitimize his claim of
Jackson's pure, unconditional love for children, he constructs a statement from an unidentified subject (‘‘some might say’’)
to achieve that effect.

25) He does display some idealism on the film. He talks about children who need attention and affection, and something
must be wrong with all the violence in the world. Yes, that's Michael Jackson's idealism, some might say, to some extent,
naivete. Certainly naivete when it comes to making yourself vulnerable to false claims. (Jackson Def)

5.5. Narrative

Because opening statements contain brief narratives that are important to understanding the case, lawyers need to re-
create what the characters in their stories say. In this regard, the lawyers of both sides are similar. In (26), the prosecutor
was recounting what happened the day after Malvo killed a female victim, and he included the voices of the dispatcher,
defendant, and the caller identification message. These constitute complicating moments in his narrative.

26) One day after he killed Linda Frankin, he called the Rockville Police Station... The dispatcher answers it: ‘‘Rockville
City Police.’’ It says: ‘‘Unknown.’’...He called: ‘‘Good morning. Don’t say anything. Just listen. We are the people that are
causing the killing in your area...’’ With that, the dispatcher tried to cut him off: ‘‘Please, call the task force.’’ (Malvo Pro)

A quoted utterance in this function has the potential to become an indexical device that creates and ascribes the
opposing identities of the characters in the narratives and positions them into a certain social group or moral position
where they may not refute or belong to in reality. In (27), which is a conversation between the defendant and his mother,
the defendant's voice helps to create a coherent representation of the defendant as a child who bonds easily with people
around him, and when this happens, he is very loyal to and cannot be separated from that person.

27) On one occasion where Lee was being about to be taken away, Lee threatened to hang himself, and he took a
bedsheet and tied it to the tree and told his mother, ‘‘I am going to hang myself if you don’t stay here with me. You are losing
me,’’ and Una talked him out of it. (Malvo Def)

More than eighty per cent of the narrative quotes are not neutral, involving positive or negative evaluation of the sayer.
In (28), the indirect quote incriminates the speaker (in this case, the government official) for his negligence and failure to
link critical fragments of important information that could have revealed al Qaeda's plot. In (29), embedded in the
negatively evaluated reporting frame ‘‘it is shocking,’’ both ‘‘proudly’’ and ‘‘devoted’’ stand out in stark contrast with the
content of the quotation and depict Moussaoui as an anti-American militant terrorist.

28) In late August of 2001, a high government official told the rookie FBI agent to try to find Khalid al-Midhar and Nawaf al-
Hazmi [two terrorists] specifically not to seek credit card information from the Saudi airlines, the airline upon which these
two had recently traveled and which is owned by our supposed ally. Why? That government official said she didn’t think it
was prudent to ask. (Moussaoui Def)

29) Now, what Moussaoui admitted in April 2005 is shocking. It is shocking for all of us to have somebody come into a
courtroom like this one, stand up, proudly admit that he is a terrorist, and say that he has devoted his life to killing
Americans. It is shocking to hear someone embrace evil. (Moussaoui Pro)

Interestingly, when one side endeavors to create a particular identity for a character by animating his or her voice, the
other side counteracts that move by either excluding that specific scene from their discourse, and/or by providing an
evidential voice from the same character. For example, when the prosecution presents Jackson's words that would only
depict him as exploitative (30) and sexually abusive (31), the defense does not mention that particular scene at all, but
instead creates an opposing identity of Jackson by providing an evidential voice (32).
12 K. Chaemsaithong / Journal of Pragmatics 119 (2017) 1--14

30) And he [Jackson] talked and he remembered that Gavin wanted to be in entertainment. And he said, ‘‘Why don’t we
pretend like this is an audition. And why don’t we do this: Why don’t we have a cussing contest, and we’ll use cuss words.
I’ll use a cuss word, you use a cuss word. We’ll just go back and forth. You pretend like it's an audition,’’ and he did.
(Jackson Pro)
31) It's in this room and on that bed where the boys were sitting there watching T.V. on night, and all of a sudden, the
defendant appears from the stairwell, absolutely stark naked, with an erection. And when the boys look at him---and Star
will say he was grossed out---that the defendant says, ‘‘It's natural. It's okay. Why don’t you boys do the same thing.’’
(Jackson Pro)

32) On that documentary, Michael Jackson makes very clear, ‘‘I don’t do anything sexual with children. I don’t commit
crimes.’’ (Jackson Def)

6. Conclusion

As demonstrated above, the opening statement, albeit objectively monologic, is a polyphonous and interactionally
dialogic genre, consisting of not only the voice of the lawyer delivering it but also many other voices. The functional
approach adopted in this study reveals that these voices accomplish multiple pragmatic functions.
The quantitative analysis shows the relative frequencies of speech reporting and its functions. Data show that
speech reporting is more frequent in the defense's discourse. While indirect reporting appears more frequently than
direct reporting in my data, a straightforward conclusion about the choice of form cannot be made, as there may be
many factors, one of which is the nature of the trial and what an individual lawyer has to report (for example, important
hand-written notes that can be used as evidence). In terms of function, narrative and evidential functions appear
frequently. I suggest that this should be seen as a reflection of generic conventions: in the opening statement, jurors
need to be given a brief account of what happened, who was involved, and what evidence would be presented. At the
same time, however, this is also an important opportunity for the defense to contest the prosecutor's account early
on, which accounts for the higher frequencies of the disaligning function in their speech. This in turn means that the
form and function of speech reporting are sensitive to the presenter's communicative goals and to the nature of the
trial. Finally, this study also reveals that regardless of their orientation, lawyers also use reporting to achieve a
coherent presentation of evidence, witnesses, and their argument, thereby showing awareness of the audience and
their needs by providing appropriate contextual clues and creating intertextual links between discourse sections that
help to highlight their claims and shared understanding. These findings suggest that the use of different voices is a
very deliberate strategy in the opening statement, as these voices have an impact upon the credibility and reliability of
a lawyer's arguments.
In a more critical vein, the findings explain how speech reporting may contribute to sustain different versions of facts.
First, by selecting different voices to report (authoritative voices) or by selecting the same voice but at different occasions,
a lawyer can silence information contradictory to her argument. Second, while the opening statement is required not to be
argumentative, lawyers can subtly validate or invalidate a version of facts through the practice of reporting, which
contributes to objectifying that version of the facts. Once an utterance is attributed to a different source (i.e., appearing as
not coming from the quoting lawyer), the quoting lawyer can then signal her support for, or distance from, such a source. In
line with studies in other genres, this study demonstrates that even though a quoted utterance may have a narrative
function, it is by and large littered with ideological evaluation on the part of the reporter (i.e., lawyer), whether it is in terms of
the reporting frame or the content of the quotes.
It is hoped that this study offers a means of demystifying the pretended informative character of the opening
statement. The findings may have practical implications for training jurors and the public at large to be aware of and
more critical of the use of voices. An interesting direction to be pursued in future research is to include other types of
reporting (including thought reporting) for a more comprehensive account of speech reporting in this genre. Finally, it
would also be interesting to compare the use of multiple voices in this genre with the closing argument, as both
are monologic genres, and examine to what extent speech reporting in both genres differs in frequency and
function[1_TD$IF].

Acknowledgment

I sincerely thank the reviewer for providing further references and resources and making constructive suggestions.
 K. Chaemsaithong / Journal of Pragmatics 119 (2017) 1--14 13

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Krisda Chaemsaithong is Associate Professor of English at Hanyang University (Seoul, Korea), where he teaches pragmatics, discourse
analysis and stylistics, and publishes widely on courtroom discourse, both historical and present-day.