Turn-taking asymmetry
Definition
The structural imbalance in a police interview where the officer holds nearly all the conversational rights: who asks, who answers, when a topic closes, and when the encounter ends.
Related terms
- Code-switching
- Shifting between different registers or even different languages within an interaction, often as a signal of role or authority. An interviewer who...
- Institutional talk
- Conversation that takes place within an institutional context (courtroom, interview room, medical consultation) and is shaped by that context: one participant controls...
- Leading question
- A question that signals or contains the expected answer. 'You were angry, weren't you?' is leading because the expected answer is embedded....
- Presupposition
- Information built into a question as a taken-for-granted background assumption. Asking 'Why did you go back?' presupposes the person went back. The...
- Reformulation
- An interviewer's restatement of what the interviewee just said, often shorter or differently framed. If the interviewee does not correct it, the...
Explained in
- Police Interview Discourse: Power, Questions, and ControlThe structural imbalance in a police interview where the officer holds nearly all the conversational rights: who asks, who answers, when a topic closes, and wh...