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Publication detail

Evidentiality in US Supreme Court opinions: Focus on passive structures with say and tell

Authors: Szczyrbak Magdalena Adriana

Year: 2021

Type of publication: ostatní - přednáška nebo poster

Page from-to: nestránkováno

Titles:

Language	Name	Abstract	Keywords
eng	Evidentiality in US Supreme Court opinions: Focus on passive structures with say and tell	The passive form of verba dicendi has attracted considerable research attention, with scholars stressing its role in marking information source (evidentiality) and changing patterns of use (see, e.g., Breeze 2017, 2018). It has also been noted that the passive of reporting verbs is used to redistribute information within the sentence, to mark thematic progression, to avoid repetition and, most importantly, to give credence to the author’s claims without specifying their source (Breeze 2017). Against this backdrop, the current study centres on passive structures with two reporting verbs, i.e. say and tell, in US Supreme Court opinions. In the analysis, corpus evidence is used to trace changing trends in their distribution and to explore their evidential (and other) uses in judicial writing. Discussion focuses specifically on ‘BE said to’ (it is said (that); is/are said to) and ‘BE told’ (we are told; I am told). The aim of the analysis is twofold: 1) to explore the frequency and distribution of the focal forms from a modern diachronic perspective and 2) to describe their evidential and discourse-organising role in judicial argumentation. The study follows the MD-CADS approach and bases on diachronic data from the SCOTUS corpus. As the preliminary findings indicate, a decrease in the frequency of impersonal passive structures (it is said) runs parallel to an increase in the frequency of hearsay forms anchored to the subject (we are told). Although both patterns are linked to unnamed sources, the new trend seems to suggest greater author visibility. This, in turn, agrees with diachronic developments noted in other types of formal written discourse.	corpus; evidentiality; judicial opinions; passive; US Supreme Court; verba dicendi