Rights Communication

Organisations which act on behalf of society are expected to act fairly, explaining themselves and their procedures to people they encounter. For the police, explanation is routine and repetitive. It is also extremely powerful. Rights Communication provides an unusual opportunity to observe different speakers and writers explaining the same texts in their own words in British police stations. Data analyses cast explanation not as a skill but a technology, a rich resource for making meaning, representing identities and organising social participation.

FRANCES ROCK is a Lecturer in the Centre for Language and Communication Research at Cardiff University, UK. She has previously taught at the Universities of Roehampton and Birmingham.

PART 1: RIGHTS AND RESEARCH: BACKGROUND, ORIENTATION AND THEORY * Introduction * Beyond Language And Transmission * Sociolinguistic Approaches To Comprehension And Comprehensibility * PART 2: WRITING RIGHTS * Introducing Written Rights Communication * Working With ‘Difficulty’: Syntax, Lexis And Semantics * Working With Structure: Syntax And Discourse * Working With Context: Rights Texts In Custody * Off The Page: Detainees’ Reading Practices * PART 3: SPEAKING RIGHTS * Introducing Spoken Rights Communication * Working With Sequence: Three Parts On The Move * Working With Concepts: Syntax And Lexis * ‘Do You Understand?’: The Comprehension-Check Routine * More Than A Right To Silence: The Utility Of Cautioning * CONCLUSION: Description Versus Intervention * Index