‘What you’ve got is a right to silence’: paraphrasing the right to silence and the meaning of rights
Issue: Vol 28 No. 1 (2021)
Journal: International Journal of Speech Language and the Law
Subject Areas: Linguistics
DOI: 10.1558/ijsll.18694
Abstract:
In the Northern Territory of Australia (NT), it has long been recognised that the right to silence ‘caution’ is difficult to communicate, particularly with some Aboriginal suspects. This article reviews paraphrases used by NT police to explain the right, asking how they could be understood by Aboriginal people and offering initial conclusions about the meaning of paraphrases involving choice, rights and force. Meanwhile, the consequences of staying silent are consistently omitted from police paraphrases, highlighting that suspects must recover important meaning from context. This article argues that a significant source of contextual knowledge about the caution is discourses about rights, which are a complex and culture-specific way of thinking and talking. There is every risk that suspects without required contextual knowledge fail to obtain anything useful from many versions of the caution, a situation which likely entrenches disadvantage in the justice system. To communicate the caution across a large cultural gap requires specifying more meaning, but only policy-makers can decide what information the caution is supposed to communicate and what effect it is supposed to have. Evaluation of potential cautions should ask whether they are comprehensible, informative and credible and ultimately what effect they have for relevant audiences.
Author: Alex Bowen
References :
Abramovitch, R., Higgins-Biss, K. L. and Biss, S. R. (1993) Young persons’ comprehension of waivers in criminal proceedings. Canadian Journal of Criminology and Criminal Justice 35(3): 309–322. https://doi.org/10.3138/cjcrim.35.3.309
Ainsworth, J. (2010) Curtailing coercion in police interrogation: the failed promise of Miranda v. Arizona.In M. Coulthard and A.Johnson (eds) The Routledge handbook of forensic linguistics 111–125. London: Routledge.
Aldridge-Waddon, M. (2019) Police delivery of the opt-out procedure for children’s court evidence: evidence of inadequate language awareness. Language Awareness 28(3): 166–185. https://doi.org/10.1080/09658416.2019.1636804
Becker, A. L. (1994) Repetition and otherness: an essay. In B. Johnstone (ed.) Repetition in Discourse: Interdisciplinary Perspectives 162–175. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
Beresford, Q. and Omaji, P (1996) Rites of Passage: Aboriginal Youth, Crime and Justice. Fremantle: Fremantle Arts Centre Press.
Blakemore, D. (1993) The relevance of reformulations. Language and Literature 2(2): 101–120. https://doi.org/10.1177/096394709300200202
Bowen, A. (2017) ‘It’s your rights, ok?’: explaining the right to silence to Aboriginal suspects in the Northern Territory. MA Thesis, Australian National University. Online: http://hdl.handle.net/1885/118730.
Bowen, A. (2019) ‘You don’t have to say anything’: modality and consequences in conversations about the right to silence in the Northern Territory. Australian Journal of Linguistics 39(3): 347–374. https://doi.org/10.1080/07268602.2019.1620682
Bowen, A. (2021) Intercultural translation of vague legal language: the right to silence in the Northern Territory of Australia. Target. International Journal of Translation Studies 33(2): 308–340. https://doi.org/10.1075/target.19181.bow
Carston, R. (2002) Thoughts and Utterances: The Pragmatics of Explicit Communication. Oxford: Blackwell. https://doi.org/10.1002/9780470754603
Charrow, R. P. and Charrow, V. R. (1979) Making legal language understandable: a psycholinguistic study of jury instructions. Columbia Law Review 79(7): 1306–1374. https://doi.org/10.2307/1121842
Communication of Rights Group (2015) Guidelines for communicating rights to non-native speakers of English in Australia, England and Wales, and the USA. Online: http://www.une.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0006/114873/Communication-of-rights.pdf.
Cooke, M. (1996) A different story: narrative versus ‘question and answer’ in Aboriginal evidence. Forensic Linguistics 3(2): 273–288. https://doi.org/10.1558/ijsll.v3i2.273
Cooke, M. (1998) Anglo/Yolngu communication in the criminal justice system. PhD Thesis, University of New England. Online: https://hdl.handle.net/1959.11/7102.
Cooke, M. and Yunupingu, H. (1998) Djambarrpuyngu Police Caution Preamble. Unpublished.
Cotterill, J. (2000) Reading the rights: a cautionary tale of comprehension and comprehensibility. Forensic Linguistics 7(1): 4. https://doi.org/10.1558/sll.2000.7.1.4
Cunneen, C. (1990) Study of Aboriginal Juveniles and Police Violence: Report Commissioned by the National Inquiry into Racist Violence. Sydney: Human Rights Australia.
Eades, D. (2008) Courtroom Talk and Neocolonial Control. New York: Mouton de Gruyter. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110208320
Eades, D. (2016) Erasing context in the courtroom construal of consent. In S. Ehrlich, D. Eades and J. Ainsworth (eds) Discursive Constructions of Consent in the Legal Process 71–90. Oxford Studies in Language and Law. New York: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199945351.003.0004
Eades, D. (2018) Communicating the right to silence to aboriginal suspects: lessons from Western Australia v Gibson. Journal of Judicial Administration 28: 4–21.
Eberhard, C. and Ndongo, A. S. (2001) Relire Amadou Hampâté Bâ pour une approche africaine du Droit: images réfléchies de la ‘pyramide’ et du ‘réseau’. Revue Interdisciplinaire d’Études Juridiques 47:73–113. https://doi.org/10.3917/riej.047.0073
Fairclough, N. (1992) Discourse and Social Change. Cambridge: Cambridge: Polity Press.
Foucault, M. (1969) L’archéologie du savoir. Paris: Gallimard.
Galligan, D. J. (1988) The right to silence reconsidered. Current Legal Problems 41(1): 69–92. https://doi.org/10.1093/clp/41.1.69
Gibbons, J. (1996) Distortions of the police interview process revealed by video-tape. Forensic Linguistics 3(2): 289–298. https://doi.org/10.1558/ijsll.v3i2.289
Gibbons, J. (2001) Revising the language of New South Wales police procedures: applied linguistics in action. Applied Linguistics 22(4): 439–469. https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/22.4.439
Godsey, M. (2006) Reformulating the Miranda warnings in light of contemporary law and understandings. Minnesota Law Review 90: 5–15.
Goldflam, R. (1995) Silence in court! Problems and prospects in Aboriginal legal interpreting. In D. Eades (ed.) Language in Evidence: Issues Confronting Aboriginal and Multicultural Australia 28. Sydney: UNSW Press.
Grisso, T., Steinberg, L., Woolard, J., Cauffman, E., Scott, E., Graham, S., Lexcen, F. J., Reppucci, N. D. and Schwartz, R. (2003) Juveniles’ competence to stand trial: a comparison of adolescents’ and adults’ capacities as trial defendants. Law and Human Behavior 27(4): 333–363. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1024065015717
Habibis, D., Taylor, P., Walter, M. and Elder, C. (2016) Repositioning the racial gaze: Aboriginal perspectives on race, race relations and governance. Social Inclusion 4(1): 57. https://doi.org/10.17645/si.v4i1.492
Haugh, M. (2013) Speaker meaning and accountability in interaction. Journal of Pragmatics 48(1): 41–56. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2012.11.009
Heritage, J. and Clayman, S. (2011) Talk in Action: Interactions, Identities, and Institutions. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781444318135
Heydon, G. (2005) The Language of Police Interviewing. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230502932
Heydon, G. (2013) From legislation to the courts: providing safe passage for legal texts through the challenges of a police interview. In C. Heffer, F. Rock and J. Conley (eds) Legal–Lay Communication: Textual Travels in the Law 55–77. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199746842.003.0003
Holcombe, S. (2015) The revealing processes of interpretation: translating human rights principles into Pintupi-Luritja. The Australian Journal of Anthropology 26(3): 428–441. https://doi.org/10.1111/taja.12152
Innes, B. and Erlam, R. (2018) Did he understand his rights? Assessing the comprehensibility of police cautions in New Zealand. International Journal of Speech, Language and the Law 25(1): 21–51. https://doi.org/10.1558/ijsll.32748
James, S. (2003) Rights as enforceable claims. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 103(1): 133–147. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0066-7372.2003.00067.x
Jones, P. (1994) Rights. New York: St Martin’s Press.
Liberman, K. (1981) Understanding Aborigines in Australian courts of law. Human Organization 40(3): 247–255. https://doi.org/10.17730/humo.40.3.7823t2m267261132
Linell, P. (1998) Discourse across boundaries: on recontextualizations and the blending of voices in professional discourse. Text & Talk 18(2): 143–158. https://doi.org/10.1515/text.1.1998.18.2.143
Martin, R. (1993) A System of Rights. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Mason, M. (2013) Can I get a lawyer? A suspect’s use of indirect requests in a custodial setting. International Journal of Speech Language and the Law 20(2): 203–227. https://doi.org/10.1558/ijsll.v20i2.203
Masson, M. E. J. and Waldron, M. A. (1994) Comprehension of legal contracts by non-experts: effectiveness of plain language redrafting. Applied Cognitive Psychology 8(1): 67–85. https://doi.org/10.1002/acp.2350080107
McKay, G. (1985) Language issues in training programs for Northern Territory police: a linguist’s view. Australian Review of Applied Linguistics. Supplement Series 2(1): 32–43. https://doi.org/10.1075/aralss.2.02mck
McLaughlin, P. (1996) Caught in the caution: Aboriginal responses to police questioning: the case of Todd, Anthony and Moonlight. MA Thesis, University of Sydney.
Merritt, M. (1994) Repetition in situated discourse - exploring its forms and functions. In B.Johnstone (ed.) Repetition in Discourse: Interdisciplinary Perspectives 23–36. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
Mildren, D. (1997) Redressing the imbalance against Aboriginals in the criminal justice system. Criminal Law Journal 21: 7–22.
Mildren, D. (1999) Redressing the imbalance: Aboriginal people in the criminal justice system. Forensic Linguistics 6(1): 137–160. https://doi.org/10.1558/sll.1999.6.1.137
Morphy, F. (2007) The language of governance in a cross-cultural context: what can and can’t be translated. Ngiya: Talk the Law 1: 93–102.
Morters, D. (2016) The right to silence. Northern Territory Law Journal 3: 77–92.
Pavlenko, A., Hepford, E. and Jarvis, S. (2019) An illusion of understanding: how native and non-native speakers of English understand (and misunderstand) their Miranda rights. International Journal of Speech, Language and the Law 26(2): 181–207. https://doi.org/10.1558/ijsll.39163
Rock, F. (2012) The caution in England and Wales. In L. Solan and P. Tiersma (eds) The Oxford Handbook of Language and Law 312–325. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199572120.013.0023
Rock, F. E. (2007) Communicating Rights: The Language of Arrest and Detention. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Rogers, R., Rogstad, J. E., Gillard, N. D., Drogin, E.Y., Blackwood, H. L. and Shuman, D. W. (2010) ‘Everyone knows their Miranda rights’: implicit assumptions and countervailing evidence. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law 16(3): 300–318. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0019316
Rogers, R., Rogstad, J. E., Steadham, J. A. and Drogin, E. Y. (2011) In plain English: avoiding recognized problems with Miranda miscomprehension. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law 17(2): 264. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0022508
Rosen, L. (1988) Individualism, community, and the law: a review essay. The University of Chicago Law Review 55(2): 571–584. https://doi.org/10.2307/1599818
Ruck, M. D., Keating, D. P., Abramovitch, R. and Koegl, C. J. (1998) Adolescents’ and children’s knowledge about rights: some evidence for how young people view rights in their own lives. Journal of Adolescence 21(3): 275–289. https://doi.org/10.1006/jado.1998.0153
Russell, S. (2000) ‘Let me put it simply …’: the case for a standard translation of the police caution and its explanation. Forensic Linguistics 7(1): 26–48. https://doi.org/10.1558/sll.2000.7.1.26
Shuy, R. W. (1997) Ten unanswered language questions about Miranda. Forensic Linguistics 4(2): 175–196. https://doi.org/10.1558/ijsll.v4i2.175
Sperber, D., Clément, F., Heintz, C., Mascaro, O., Mercier, H., Origgi, G. and Wilson, D. (2010) Epistemic vigilance. Mind & Language 25(4): 359–393. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0017.2010.01394.x
Sperber, D. and Wilson, D. (1995) Relevance: Communication and Cognition (2nd edn). Oxford: Blackwell.
Steiner, H. J. (1988) Political participation as a human right. Harvard Human Rights Yearbook 1: 77–134.
Stuesser, L. (2002) The accused’s right to silence: no doesn’t mean no. Manitoba Law Journal 29: 149.
Sutton, P. (2001) Kinds of Rights In Country: Recognising Customary Rights as Incidents of Native Title. Perth: National Native Title Tribunal.
Sweller, J., Ayres, P. L. and Kalyuga, S. (2011) Cognitive Load Theory. New York: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-8126-4
Waldron, J. (1993) Liberal Rights: Collected Papers 1981–1991. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
White, M. and Gooda, M. (2017) Report of the Royal Commission and Board of Inquiry into the Protection and Detention of Children in the Northern Territory, Volume 2B.
Legal sources
Cleland v R (1982) 151 CLR 1
Miranda v. Arizona (1966) 384 US 438
Police v Jawrarla [2006] NTMC 043
Police v KR [2015] NTMC 020
R v Age [2011] NTSC 104
R v Anunga (1976) 11 ALR 412
R v BM [2015] NTSC 73
R v Bonson [2019] NTSC 22
R v Butler (1991) 102 FLR 341
R v Cotchilli [2007] NTSC 52
R v Downs [2019] NTSC 7
R v Durilla [2014] NTMC 026
R v Echo [1996] NTSC 177
R v Inkamala [1996] NTSC 18
R v Lawrence [2016] NTSC 65
R v Mangaraka [1995] NTSC 65
R v Rankin [1998] NTSC
R v Riley [1993] NTSC 113
R v RR [2009] NTSC 44
R v Spencer [2000] NTSC 44
R v Thomas [2006] NTSC 87
R v Vigona [1999] NTSC 120
Tudorstack v Chula [2004] NTMC 013
Western Australia v Gibson [2014] WASC 240
Evidence (National Uniform Legislation) Act 2011 (NT)
Police Administration Act 1978 (NT)