Giving Voice to Silence: A Study of State Violence in Bolzaneto Prison during the Genoa G8 Summit - Conflict and Multimodal Communication: Social Research and Machine Intelligence - page 185

happens in a trial, usually only one of the two stories may be officially accepted as
being a “true” reconstruction of reality, whereas the other is generally rejected as
being false (Scheppele 1989 ).
At the same time the guilty have three basic strategies for trying to cancel or at
least minimize the degrading effects of the crime committed and the consequences
of it. The first is a sociological strategy through which they seek to show that behind
the charge are hidden particular games or interests. The second is a psychological
strategy in which the accused seek to discredit the accusers, calling into question
their mental competency (Boltanski 1990 ). Finally, the third strategy is of a semantic
nature and consists in defining events in a completely different way from how it is
presented by the prosecution (Giglioli et al. 1997 ).
This last step is crucial because in a trial the facts are the outcome of the medi-
ation of different narratives, and this strategy has been systematically implemented
by the members of the police force. Indeed, it was difficult to resort to the other
strategies because it was hard to find the narratives that showed a particular interest
in the acts of violence and impossible to call into question the mental competency of
hundreds of people. Thus, interrogation is the main tool for obtaining information to
reconstruct what happened, so as to establish the facts, determine the circumstances,
and identify the actors. The underlying logic of this process of investigation requires
a set of rules and implications that lead to the greatest possible efficiency, the
so-called principle of cooperation (Grice 1975 ), which is based on four maxims:
(1) quality: the contribution should be true and supported by adequate evidence;
(2) quantity: the contribution should be given exactly to the extent required; (3)
relationship: the contribution must be relevant and important; (4) manner: the
contribution should be clear, brief, unambiguous, and orderly. According to Grice,
during a conversation, the participants should be forced to give their contribution so
that the conversation flows well.
However, this principle clashes with the mechanisms of “saving face,” namely,
the personal need for witnesses and defendants to avoid negative responsibility.
Goffman ( 1963 ), when referring to Durkheim ( 1965 ), mentions a double articu-
lation - negative and positive - in relation to the ritual designed to save face. If
the ritual is negative, it involves staying away, avoidance, and interdiction; if it is
positive, the gap between donor and receiver becomes closer through offerings and
gifts of various kinds. Interrogation in particular is a step in forcing the defendant to
answer questions appropriately and coherently, limiting freedom of action because
the only action that is allowed is to provide a consistent and relevant answer. In a
regular trial, during a hearing, the participants are obliged to answer the questions
and to tell the truth, while in the modern legal system witnesses must swear or
affirm that their testimony will be true. The trial becomes a symbolic arena wider
than a juridical-legal trial because it involves devoting considerable attention to the
rituals of presentation of oneself and to strategies for the avoidance of the charges
brought. During a trial the public prosecutor and the lawyers, in order to obtain
information and reconstruct the facts, appeal to the principle of cooperation within
a coercive framework. In other words, witnesses and defendants are forced to act in
a cooperative manner (Penman 1987 ).