Examination of the Structure of Interactions between the Police and Suspects in Anambra State: a Conversation Analysis

Abstract

It is a general understanding that most of the problems which individuals and communities face today stem from communication gaps, communication breakdown or a total lack of it. Psychological linguistics, context and sociolinguistics variables may interplay to influence what people say or hear in a communication event such as conversation. More so, every communication event is driven by language. In other words, the essence of language is communication; hence, an understanding of language is important, especially as particular varieties of language are associated with particular social groups. Language is used to control behavior. The police use language to bring out a form of behavior through issuing of commands. Such utterances are intended to bring about certain forms of behavior so as to ascertain facts and information from suspects. Thus, this study examined the structure of interactions between the police and suspects in Anambra in order to explore the conversation strategies used by the Nigeria police in the process of interacting with suspects bearing in mind the integral role of the Police which include the maintenance of peace and order, enforcing the laws of the nation as well as other predominant roles. Using Conversational analysis, the study discussed the structure of interactions between the police and suspects in Anambra State and also examined the constructional components of turns in the interaction, as well as the turn-taking features in the interactions.