BRIEF RESEARCH REPORT article
Front. Commun.
Sec. Language Communication
The last word: Power, resistance, and interactional authority in courtroom testimony
Provisionally accepted
- Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom
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This article investigates how institutional authority and individual agency are co-constructed in the closing moments of courtroom testimony. Drawing on conversation analysis within a critical-discursive and Foucauldian framework, it examines the final re-cross-examination of Amanda Hayes in State v. Hayes (North Carolina, 2014). The analysis shows how question design, timing, and repeated phrasing both sustain and contest power, and how micro-level practices—overlap, repair, and expressions of stance—allow the defendant to momentarily reclaim knowledge and moral authority, even under strict procedural constraints specific to the re-cross-examination phase. By conceptualising authority as a dialogically sustained interactional accomplishment, the study highlights how compliance and resistance make courtroom power visible. These findings demonstrate how language performs and negotiates legitimacy, control, and agency in highly regulated legal interactions. In doing so, the article offers new insight into how institutional talk enacts and contests power at the very moment testimony concludes.
Keywords: Courtroom testimony, institutional discourse, Interactional authority, Micro-analysis, Power and resistance
Received: 25 Nov 2025; Accepted: 29 Jan 2026.
Copyright: © 2026 Blewitt and Duffy. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Sarah E. Duffy
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