Giving Evidence in Court: Knowledge Mediation and Emotional Involvement in UK Booklets for Child and Young Witnesses

Giving evidence in court is a stressful experience for most people, but especially for children and young people. To help and support under-18s, in the UK the Child and Young Witness Packs were developed in the 1990s, where information on the judicial process was mediated to make it accessible to target users who are at a different stage of cognitive development and have a different emotional involvement with giving evidence. This contribution presents a corpus-driven study of five booklets meant for child and young witnesses. This target group needs not only specialised knowledge and discourse to be reformulated and recontextualised (cf. Calsamiglia / van Dijk 2004), but also to be reassured that they have done nothing wrong and reminded of their rights. The aim of the study is to investigate the strategies used to ensure a successful knowledge mediation and to address and hopefully reduce the emotional impact of a potentially daunting experience.