“I Hear the Cry, but I Do Not See the Tears”: Indirectness in Bribery Negotiations

Abstract

There is a relationship between crime and language, particularly crimes such as bribery, which are perpetuated through the use of language. These language-based crimes are often articulated indirectly to afford the interlocutor’s denial should such a need arise. This paper aims to comprehend the role played by language in bribery negotiations by exploring the actual utterances used by interlocutors involved in bribery negotiations and the linguistic features portrayed in these utterances. Informed by interview data (obtained from motorists) interpreted through the pragmatic act and speech act theories, the study reveals several indirect utterances such as ‘I hear you cry but I do not see your tears’,  ‘Put down,’ ‘Do a drink,’ ‘Ostrich feathers are the ones that can work in this situation,’ ‘make a strong tea…’ which are characterised by declarative and imperative statements, semantic shift and informal expressions. Indirect speech acts play a significant role as a resource used to veil unethical practices from being revealed in the courts of law. Therefore, it is recommended that the expertise of language specialists should be used in the courts of law to interpret language-related crimes such as bribery.