Linguistic Strategies Employed during Examination of Children in Conflict with the Law in Eldoret Children’s Court, Kenya
Publication Date
2019-07Author
Type
ArticleMetadata
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Odera, J; Achieng, L & Ochieng, R (2019). Linguistic Strategies Employed during Examination of Children in Conflict with the Law in Eldoret Children’s Court, Kenya
Abstract/ Overview
This article focuses on children in conflict with the law and how they participate in court based on the linguistic strategies employed during examination phase in the courtroom. The data obtained was analyzed using Critical Discourse Analysis theory (CDA) by Norman Fairclough. CDA sees discourse as a social practice that involves the world socially and how it is made composed by other social practices. The theory holds that a study of the microdiscourse structures such as lexical choices and syntactic form in a given context leads to an understanding of the macro-discourse social structures such as power. The study adopted a descriptive design method because the variables were not manipulated. The study was carried out in the children’s court in Eldoret, Uasin Gishu County. This is because Eldoret is close to the researcher and also being the major towns in North Rift region, the courts around have cases involving children that they handle. Therefore the research would also benefit the other courts across the country. The sample of the study was obtained through stratified purposeful sampling. The study targeted 20 children in criminal cases. The main instruments of data collection were audio recordings of the court proceedings and interview schedules of children’s advocate both the prosecution and the defense attorney. The target population were children of 8 to 15 years old. From the analyses it is established that evidentiary rules empower those who assume the examiner role i.e. the prosecutor and the defense counsel by placing them in control of topic choice and change, and giving them the means to constrain the contributions of others. However, children in conflict with the law are not always able to exploit the language and master the courtroom discourse available to the prosecutor/lawyer. . The children in conflict with the law usually find it hard to participate fully in a trial due to the nature of the courtroom language