The TRUST Untruthfulness Framework in Forensic Contexts
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/lhs.36988Keywords:
Lying, bullshit, Grice, untruthfulness, false implicature, withholding, dogmaAbstract
This article introduces a comprehensive linguistic-ethical framework for analysing untruthfulness in situated discourse, as developed in much more depth in Heffer (in press). The TRUST (Trust-Related Untruthfulness in Situated Text) framework extends the analysis of insincerity beyond lying to misleading and withholding. More radically, it extends our conception of untruthfulness to include not only insincerity but also epistemic irresponsibility, or not taking care in establishing and conveying the evidence. The TRUST heuristic then provides a practical procedure for analysing putative cases of untruthfulness in situated discourse. This heuristic is then applied to two cases of putative untruthfulness in the legal process: the Bronston perjury case in the US and the Iraq Inquiry in the UK.
References
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NCA (1999). Credo for Ethical Communication. Available at http://www.natcom.org/policies/External/EthnicalComm.htm
Pagin, P. (2015). Assertion. In E. N. Zalta (Ed.) The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Stanford, CA: Stanford University.
Qiu, L. (2016). Donald Trump’s Pants on Fire claim of ‘large scale voter fraud’. PolitiFact. 17 October.
Saul, J. M. (2012). Lying, Misleading, and What is Said: An Exploration in Philosophy of Language and in Ethics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199603688.001.0001
Searle, J. R. (1969). Speech Acts: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139173438
Solan, L. M. and Tiersma, P. M. (2005). Speaking of Crime: The Language of Criminal Justice. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago.
Sweetser, E. (1987). The definition of lie: An examination of the folk models underlying a semantic prototype. In D. Holland (Ed.) Cultural Models in Language and Thought. New York: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511607660.003
Tiersma, P. M. (1990). The language of perjury: ‘Literal truth,’ ambiguity, and the false statement requirement. Southern California Law Review 63 (2): 373–432.
Trilling, L. (1972). Sincerity and Authenticity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Vincent Marelli, J. (2006). Truthfulness. In J.-O. Östman, J. Verschueren and E. Versluys (Eds) Handbook of Pragmatics, 1–72. Amsterdam: Benjamins. https://doi.org/10.1075/hop.10.tru2
Webber, J. (2013). Liar! Analysis 73 (4): 651–659. https://doi.org/10.1093/analys/ant081
Weinrich, H. (2005 [1965]). The Linguistics of Lying and Other Essays. Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press.
Williams, B. (2002). Truth and Truthfulness: An Essay in Genealogy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Winter, S. L. (2001). A Clearing in the Forest: Law, Life, and Mind. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Zagzebski, L. (1996). Virtues of the Mind. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139174763
Battaly, H. (2015). Virtue. Cambridge: Polity.
Bok, S. (1978). Lying: Moral Choice in Public and Private Life. New York: Vintage Publishers.
Bolinger, D. (1973). Truth is a linguistic question. Language 49 (3): 539–550. https://doi.org/10.2307/412350
Brown, P. and Levinson, S. C. (1987). Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511813085
Burke, E. (1893 [1796]). Burke’s Letters on a Regicide Peace. London: George Bell.
Cameron, D. (1995). Verbal Hygiene. London: Routledge.
CED (2003). Collins English Dictionary. 6th ed. Glasgow: HarperCollins.
Cheney, G., May, S. and Munshi, D. (2011). The Handbook of Communication Ethics. International Communication Association (ICA) Handbook. New York: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203890400
Chilcot, S. J. (2016). The Report of the Iraq Inquiry. http://www.iraqinquiry.org.uk/the-report/
Code, L. (1987). Epistemic Responsibility. Hanover, NH: Brown University Press.
Coleman, L. and Kay, P. (1981). Prototype semantics: The English word lie. Language 57 (1): 26–44. https://doi.org/10.1353/lan.1981.0002
Cooper, C. (2016). Tony Blair admits he should have challenged intelligence that led to Iraq War. The Independent. 7 July.
DeLapp, K. and Henkel, J. (Eds) (2016). Lying and Truthfulness. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett.
DePaul, M. and Zagzebski, L. (Eds) (2003). Intellectual Virtue: Perspectives from Ethics and Epistemology. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199252732.001.0001
Drobnic Holan, A. and Qiu, L. (2015). 2015 Lie of the Year: The campaign misstatements of Donald Trump. PolitiFact. 21 December.
Dynel, M. (2011). A web of deceit: A neo-Gricean view on types of verbal deception. International Review of Pragmatics 3: 139–167. https://doi.org/10.1163/187731011X597497
Frankfurt, H. G. (2005). On Bullshit. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Greco, J. (2003). Knowledge as credit for true belief. In M. DePaul and L. Zagzebski (Eds) Intellectual Virtue: Perspectives from Ethics and Epistemology, 111–134. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199252732.003.0006
Green, S. P. (2001). Lying, misleading, and falsely denying: How moral concepts inform the law of perjury, fraud, and false statements. Hastings Law Journal 53: 157–212.
Grice, H. P. (1975). Logic and conversation. In P. Cole and J. Morgan (Eds) Syntax and Semantics 3: Speech Acts, 41–58. New York: Academic Press.
Heffer, C. (2013). Communication and magic: Authorized voice, legal-linguistic habitus and the recontextualization of ‘beyond reasonable doubt’. In J. M. Conley, C. Heffer and F. Rock (Eds) Legal-Lay Communication: Textual Travels in the Law, 206–225. New York: Oxford University Press.
Heffer, C. (In press). All Lies and Bullshit: Trust and the Analysis of Untruthfulness in Public Discourse. New York: Oxford University Press.
Jacobson, L. (2016). Yes, Donald Trump did call climate change a Chinese hoax. PolitiFact. 3 June.
Jamieson, K. H. and Cappella, J. N. (2008). Echo Chamber: Rush Limbaugh and the Conservative Media Establishment. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Kant, I. (2012) Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals. Rev. ed./translation. Edited by M. J. Gregor and J. Timmermann. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kuenssberg, L. (2017). Iraq Inquiry: Full transcript of Sir John Chilcot’s BBC interview. BBC News. 6 July. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-40510539
Levitt, J. (2007). The Truth about Voter Fraud. New York: Brennan Center for Justice.
Mahon, J.E. (2016). The definition of lying and deception. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Winter 2016. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2016/entries/lying-definition/
Martin, J. R. and White, P. R. R. (2005). The Language of Evaluation: Appraisal in English. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230511910
Meibauer, J. (2005). Lying and falsely implicating. Journal of Pragmatics 37 (9): 1373–1399. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2004.12.007
Meibauer, J. (2014). Lying at the Semantics-Pragmatics Interface. Boston, MA: De Gruyter Mouton. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781614510840
Montmarquet, J. (1987). Epistemic virtue. Mind 96: 482–497. https://doi.org/10.1093/mind/XCVI.384.482
Montmarquet, J. (1993). Epistemic Virtue and Doxastic Responsibility. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
NCA (1999). Credo for Ethical Communication. Available at http://www.natcom.org/policies/External/EthnicalComm.htm
Pagin, P. (2015). Assertion. In E. N. Zalta (Ed.) The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Stanford, CA: Stanford University.
Qiu, L. (2016). Donald Trump’s Pants on Fire claim of ‘large scale voter fraud’. PolitiFact. 17 October.
Saul, J. M. (2012). Lying, Misleading, and What is Said: An Exploration in Philosophy of Language and in Ethics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199603688.001.0001
Searle, J. R. (1969). Speech Acts: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139173438
Solan, L. M. and Tiersma, P. M. (2005). Speaking of Crime: The Language of Criminal Justice. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago.
Sweetser, E. (1987). The definition of lie: An examination of the folk models underlying a semantic prototype. In D. Holland (Ed.) Cultural Models in Language and Thought. New York: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511607660.003
Tiersma, P. M. (1990). The language of perjury: ‘Literal truth,’ ambiguity, and the false statement requirement. Southern California Law Review 63 (2): 373–432.
Trilling, L. (1972). Sincerity and Authenticity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Vincent Marelli, J. (2006). Truthfulness. In J.-O. Östman, J. Verschueren and E. Versluys (Eds) Handbook of Pragmatics, 1–72. Amsterdam: Benjamins. https://doi.org/10.1075/hop.10.tru2
Webber, J. (2013). Liar! Analysis 73 (4): 651–659. https://doi.org/10.1093/analys/ant081
Weinrich, H. (2005 [1965]). The Linguistics of Lying and Other Essays. Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press.
Williams, B. (2002). Truth and Truthfulness: An Essay in Genealogy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Winter, S. L. (2001). A Clearing in the Forest: Law, Life, and Mind. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Zagzebski, L. (1996). Virtues of the Mind. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139174763
Published
2019-04-24
Issue
Section
Articles
How to Cite
Heffer, C. (2019). The TRUST Untruthfulness Framework in Forensic Contexts. Linguistics and the Human Sciences, 12(2-3), 122-140. https://doi.org/10.1558/lhs.36988
