1. Excellence

Introduction

Police interviews with suspects are a critical part of the criminal investigation process and a complex form of institutional discourse, characterized by power and knowledge asymmetries and the gap between the legal register and lay understanding (Mason & Rock, 2020). The gap is even wider in the interviews where police officers and suspects do not share the same linguistic and cultural background: such interviews are fraught with potential for misunderstandings and cross-cultural pragmatic failures (Pavlenko et al., 2019; Smith, 2021). To date, however, studies of police interviews with second language (L2) speakers have focused predominantly on interpreted interviews (Berk-Seligson, 2009; Hale et al., 2020; Mulayim et al., 2015; Nakane, 2014, 2020). What has escaped scholarly attention are communicative challenges in the interviews conducted in the L2.

In Norway, approximately 18% of all criminal charges are filed against people with immigrant background (Andersen et al., 2017), thus making linguistic and cultural barriers a common challenge in investigative interviews. In conducting the interviews, Norwegian police officers are expected to follow the principles of an investigative method called KREATIV (Fahsing & Rachlew, 2009). The purpose of the KREATIV interview is to gather information by giving the suspects space to tell their own version of events, by listening actively and by building trust and rapport through interaction. To secure valid and credible responses, investigators must make sure that suspects understand their questions and that they, in turn, understand the suspects’ answers. The literature on KREATIV does emphasize the importance of mutual understanding but the only advice it gives regarding L2 speakers is to call in an interpreter (Bjerknes & Fahsing, 2018). In practice, investigators face a series of challenges in obtaining timely and qualified interpreting services (Lian & Mork-Johansen, 2020). As a consequence, it is not unusual to conduct interviews with L2 suspects in the L2 Norwegian or in the lingua franca English. This is especially common in the increasing number of the interviews conducted at the scene. Yet, no guidance is given to police officers on how to avoid linguistic pitfalls in such interviews.

This project is a collaboration between the University of Agder, the University of Oslo, the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, the Norwegian Police University College and Police Departments of Oslo and Trondheim. The purpose of the project is to identify the sources of communication problems in interviews conducted in L2 Norwegian and in English at the police station and at the scene and to propose solutions for averting and repairing such problems. In order to do this, the project group will analyze a corpus of 150 audio- and video-recordings of authentic investigative interviews conducted in L2 Norwegian and in English with speakers from a variety of linguistic and cultural backgrounds, made available by Police Departments of Oslo and Trondheim. Using methods from Conversation Analysis (CA), Second Language Acqui­sition (SLA) and Forensic Linguistics, we will generate new knowledge about three aspects of investigative interviews:

 

1. We will identify typical sources of misunderstandings in the interviews conducted in the suspects’ L2 Norwegian and in English and pinpoint similarities and differences in the interviews conducted in L2 and English and in the interviews conducted at the police station and at the scene.
2. We will evaluate  the relative effectiveness of the strategies employed by investigators to secure mutual understanding, and their consequences for the suspects’ right to give a free account of their actions.
3. We will outline recommendations for how to secure mutual understanding in interviews conducted in the L2 Norwegian and in English.

1.2 State of the art and knowledge needs

Police interviews are a multi-faceted process, continuously modified through advances in forensic sciences, including forensic linguistics and psychology. To date, linguists and psychologists have examined several aspects of police interviews, ranging from communication of rights and building of rapport to lie detection and forced confessions (Gudjonsson, 2018; Leo, 2008; MacDonald et al., 2017; Mason, 2016; Mason & Rock, 2020; Walsh & Bull, 2012). This research has led to creation of new approaches to interrogation and has inspired many police departments to discard abusive confession-oriented interrogation methods, such as the Reid Technique, in favor of information-gathering approaches, such as PEACE in the UK and KREATIV in Norway (Fahsing & Kepinska Jacobsen, 2016).

In a similar vein, studies of interpreted interviews revealed several factors that jeopardize the rights of suspects to due process and may lead to misunderstandings and even false convictions. These factors include but are not limited to erroneous word choices, inappropriate turn-taking and biases common for police officers who serve as interpreters (Berk-Seligson, 2009; Hale et al., 2020, 2020; Howes, 2018; Mulayim et al., 2015; Nakane, 2014, 2020). The outcomes of these studies are new professional codes and language service protocols (e.g., Mayfield, 2017).

Not all interviews, however, are mediated by interpreters. Some suspects waive the right to an interpreter and proceed with an interview in the L2. Sometimes police officers decide not to use interpreters because of procedural or practical reasons, the latter particularly common during the investigation at the scene. According to the Action Plan for Quality Improvement of the Investigation Field (Handlingsplan for løft av etterforskningsfeltet) from 2016, to increase the quality and efficiency of their services, the Norwegian police is expected to carry out more investigative work on the spot. As a consequence of time pressure and limited access to interpreting services on short notice, police officers may rule out interpreting and conduct interviews in L2 Norwegian or in English. Such interviews eschew the problem of biased interpreting and inexact translation equivalents but may place L2 speakers at a significant disadvantage when it comes to understanding what is being said at each stage of the interview. An added disadvantage may stem from the investigators’ limited English skills. Several studies have demonstrated that even fairly advanced L2 speakers have difficulties understanding the rights delivered in the L2 (Berk-Seligson, 2009; Bowen, 2019; Dumas, 2020; Eades, 2018; Pavlenko, 2008; Pavlenko et al., 2019; Urbanik & Pavlenko, 2021). What has not been studied to date are other communicative difficulties and strategies in investigative interviews at the police station and definitely not at the scene. Part of the problem is limited access to relevant data, the other part is the lack of expertise in the study of Second Language Acquisition (SLA) among forensic linguists. The proposed project overcomes both obstacles.

Members of the research team have extensive expertise in the study of police interviews from the SLA perspective (e.g., Pavlenko, 2008; Pavlenko et al., 2019; Urbanik & Pavlenko, 2021) and have collaborated with the Oslo Police Department on the project titled “Communicating Rights in Police Investigative Interviews”. The proposed project will expand the analysis from communication of rights at the start of the interview to the interview at large. It will also compare the challenges of police interviews at the station and at the scene by collecting new data from Trondheim.

The corpus of 150 interviews in L2 and in English as a lingua franca is the first such corpus world-wide and the proposed study is the first corpus-based empirical study of police interviews conducted in the L2 of the suspects and in English, not only in Norway but around the world, where lingua franca interviews are becoming more common. It is also the first to conduct a four-way comparison by language (L2 Norwegian vs. English) and by setting (at the station and at the scene). The findings will generate (a) new theoretical and empirical knowledge, critical for understanding communication in legal settings in the globalized world; (b) training and practical recommendations for best practices in police interviews with L2 suspects, and (c) directions for further research in this field.

1.3 Research approach and objectives

The overarching objectives of the project focus on gaining knowledge about the understanding problems investigators and L2 suspects face in police interviews and on proposing practical solutions in this matter. In order to reach our aims, the project will adopt a research design consisting of four work packages, each addressing a separate research question. In WP1, we will elicit police investigators’ opinions on their decision-making involving the language of the interview and strategies they use to deal with linguistic challenges in interviews conducted in L2 Norwegian or in English as a lingua franca. The purpose of WP2 is to identify and categorize comprehension problems that occur during the interview. WP3 and WP4 deal with how the police officers seek to establish mutual understanding at the police station and at the scene. In WP3, we investigate the practices used by the interviewers for preempting communicative problems and in WP4, we analyze how problems that do occur are handled by repair practices. Each work package will be informed by theories and methods from the fields of Second Language Acquisition, Conversation Analysis and Forensic Linguistics, which will be presented below in section 1.4.

WP 1:    What factors influence language choice in interviews with L2 speakers of Norwegian?

Studies of the use of interpreters in investigative interviewing show that decision-making by police officers is often affected by extraneous factors, such as cost, time management and control over the interview (Wakefield et al., 2015). Until now, however, no one has analyzed factors that affect the decision to proceed with the interview in L2 Norwegian or in English as a lingua franca. The objective of this WP is to elicit investigators’ own perceptions of their decision-making and interactions with L2 Norwegian speakers and to analyze language ideologies that shape these decisions and interactions. More specifically, we will ask the following sub-questions:

1. How commonly do police officers resort to L2 Norwegian or English in investigative interviews?
2. How do investigators decide that the suspect’s proficiency in L2 Norwegian or English is sufficient for an interview without an assistance of an interpreter?
3. What do investigators see as the most common challenges in the interviews conducted in English and in L2 Norwegian?
4. What strategies do investigators use to address these linguistic challenges?

Approach: We will begin by analyzing the treatment of linguistic challenges in normative discourses of police interrogation, i.e., institutional regulations, such as Straffeprosessloven, Påtaleinstruksen or Rundskriv fra Riksadvokaten. To elicit the investigators’ own perceptions of their interactions with suspects who speak Norwegian as L2, we will adopt a two-stage methodological approach that draws on Frantzen’s (2010) study of police ideologies. In the first stage, a short questionnaire will be distributed to investigators in the Oslo and Trondheim Police Departments, electronically and by mail. The respondents will be asked to estimate how frequently they come into contact with L2 speakers of Norwegian and how often they proceed with the interviews in L2 Norwegian or in English, as opposed to waiting for an interpreter. In the open-ended part they will be asked to list the most common challenges they encounter in the interviews conducted in L2 Norwegian or English and the strategies they use to avoid miscommunication and achieve understanding. The questionnaire will be anonymous and take about 10 minutes to complete.

In the second stage of the project, Dr. Kepinska Jakobsen will conduct focus groups with investigators enrolled in the Police University College. The interviews will begin with a role play exercise, intended to elicit participants’ experiences with L2 speakers, followed by reflections on specific cases they have been involved in, on general ‘rules of thumb’ they follow in the interviews with L2 speakers and on challenges common to such interviews. Participants will also be asked to evaluate the effectiveness of individual communicative strategies, compiled on the basis of the questionnaires administered in stage one.

WP2:     Which understanding problems are characteristic of investigative interviews conducted with L2 suspects without an interpreter?

The objective of this WP is to identify the sources of understanding problems that are specific for investigative interviews conducted in L2 Norwegian or in English at the police station and at the scene. Previous research has pointed out that comprehension problems in police interviews stem not only from legalese but also from colloquial speech (Heydon, 2005). However, no systematic and detailed overview has yet been provided of the types and sources of comprehension problems in police interviews with L2 suspects, conducted without an interpreter, and in different settings. The scarcity of information hinders articulation of recommendations and procedures that might help investigators pre-empt or solve such problems. To address this overarching concern, we will answer the following sub-questions:

1. What are the key sources of understanding problems for suspects interviewed in L2 Norwegian or in English?
2. What are the key sources of understanding problems for police officers who conduct interviews in English or in the suspects’ L2 Norwegian?
3. What are the similarities and differences between problems in English and in L2 Norwegian?
4. What are the similarities and differences between the challenges posed by interviews at the station and at the scene?

Approach: The project will identify all instances of manifest non-understanding in the corpus, operationalized as occurrences of other-initiation of repair that target the content of the previous turn(s). In addition, it will identify manifest misunderstandings as they are identified by the participants in third position repair (speakers rejecting and correcting the interlocutors’ interpretation of their previous turn). The problem sources will then be analyzed in terms of how they relate to the specific context of the investigative interview, such as legal terminology, institutional procedures or interview practices. This will provide us with a basis for assessing the effectiveness of the practices used by the police in order to overcome understanding problems (analyzed in WP 3-4). Furthermore, it will be useful for raising police investigators’ awareness about potential obstacles to reaching mutual understanding with L2 speakers.

WP3:   How do police officers seek to prevent understanding problems in formulating questions?

Objective: In answering the third question, we aim to scrutinize and evaluate the practices investigators employ in order to prevent suspects’ understanding problems during questioning. Previous research has shown that one way of pre-empting problems of understanding questions is to reformulate them by adding candidate answers (Svennevig, 2013). This preemptive strategy may enhance understanding, but may at the same time narrow the suspects’ response opportunities and thereby limit their freedom to give a free and unimpeded account of the events (as required by KREATIV). To provide a systematic overview of the practices and the consequences of their use, we will be guided by the following sub-questions:

a. How do investigators reformulate questions when suspects explicitly signal understanding problems?

b. How and when do they pre-empt understanding problems in the process of formulating questions?

c. What are the similarities and differences between pre-emptive strategies used in L2 Norwegian and in English?

Approach: The team will identify the investigators’ use of conventional practices for pre-empting understanding problems, such as reformulation, decomposition, word explanations and background knowledge checks. It will use these findings to assess to which degree such practices are in common use and to what degree they are effective in preventing the types of problems identified in WP2. It will also consider whether these practices constrain the freedom of the suspects in formulating their accounts in their own words. Based on examples of successful use of pre-emptive strategies, the project will formulate recommendations on effective use of such practices for establishing mutual understanding of issues that recurrently create problems in investigative interviews.

WP4:   How do police officers deal with L2-related problems in the suspects’ answers and accounts?

The objective of the last work package is to investigate and evaluate the solutions investigators implement to deal with their own problems in understanding the suspects’ accounts and answers. Previous research has shown that understanding checks are frequently used to secure mutual understanding of L2 speakers’ talk (Kurhila, 2006). However, by reformulating the suspects’ accounts in different words, they also offer a specific interpretation of that account, which may contribute to casting the suspects’ actions in a negative light. Also, repeated use of understanding checks may be heard as expressing doubts about the account (Richardson et al., 2019), and repeated requests for clarification may be interpreted as resistance or disaffiliation and thus lead to a climate of distrust and hostility (Svennevig, 2012). To find out how investigators deal with their own understanding problems and whether their strategies affect suspects’ accounts and answers, we will answer the following sub-questions:

1. How do repair initiations influence the course of the suspects’ account? 

2. To what degree do investigators use understanding checks that reformulate the suspects’ account, and do the reformulations imply a negative interpretation bias that serves to incriminate the suspect? 

3. How are instances of non-understanding and misunderstandings treated, and to what extent do they engender distrust or hostility?
4. What are the similarities and differences in dealing with suspects’ accounts and answers in L2 Norwegian and English?

Approach: The team will identify clarification requests, understanding checks and other sequences in which investigators indicate understanding problems while suspects provide their answers and accounts. The team will then analyze whether and to what extent the practices involve a negative interpretation bias. Furthermore, the suspects’ reactions will be investigated to see whether the practices are heard as expressing distrust or hostility. This will allow us to formulate recommendations on how to avoid practices that imply a negative interpretation bias and how to effectively engage suspects in reformulating their own utterances.

1.4 Theoretical approach

1.4.1 Language ideologies

One of the key questions in social theory is the relationship between agency and structure. In Forensic Linguistics and Sociolinguistics, it is addressed through studies of language ideologies, morally and politically loaded representations that shape everyday language choices, attitudes and use (Woolard, 2021). These ideologies have been examined in courtrooms and police interviews (e.g., Ainsworth, 2008; Coulthard et al., 2021; Ehrlich et al., 2016; Frantzen, 2010; Heydon, 2019), with the focus on three overarching questions: What are the roles of institutional structures vs. individual agency in selecting communicative forms to deploy? How do these communicative practices shape social outcomes? More specifically, how do they contribute to linguistic inequality in the criminal justice system?

The greatest advantage of the language ideology framework is in the fact that it overcomes the macro/micro split, common in social sciences, and allows for integration of macro-/social and micro-/interactional levels of communicative practices. Analyses of macro- aspects rely on well-honed theoretical tools, such as indexicality, iconization, erasure, and valuation (Woolard, 2021). Indexicality and iconization refer to implicit association of language forms with particular contexts and speaker characteristics (e.g., regional and class origins). Erasure refers to overlooking characteristics inconsistent with an iconic image (e.g., an L2 speaker as a poorly educated immigrant). Valuation refers to the fact that, despite being inherently arbitrary, ideologies of how language works – or ought to work – endow some language varieties, registers and features with greater value and prestige than others, shape institutional arrangements (e.g., the choice of the ‘standard’ language), turn the practices and skills of the dominant groups into a form of symbolic capital that brings social and economic rewards (Bourdieu, 1991) and marginalize the underprivileged. When it comes to police interrogation, one ideology in particular works against L2 speakers, namely the view of legal language as a transparent medium of communication (cf. Ainsworth, 2008; Pavlenko, 2008; Pavlenko et al., 2019).

In the present study, we will use these analytical tools in WP1 to investigate potential conflicts and contradictions between language ideologies embedded in (a) normative discourses of police interrogation, i.e., institutional regulations, such as Straffeprosessloven, Påtaleinstruksen or Rundskriv fra Riksadvokaten; (b) conscious ‘rationalizations’ of communicative strategies articulated by investigators in questionnaires, focus groups and interviews, and (c) ‘instantiations’ of language beliefs, evident in the investigative interviews we analyze.

1.4.2 Conversation Analysis: repair and pre-emptive practices

WP 2 through 4 turn the gaze from the macro- to micro-/interactional aspects of police interviews and analyze them with the help of the theoretical apparatus of Conversation Analysis (CA). A central distinction in CA is between claims and demonstrations of understanding (Sacks, 1992). Recipients may claim understanding by producing minimal responses and receipts of information. They may also demonstrate their understanding by formulating the gist of the previous utterance(s) or by producing a next relevant contribution to the activity in course (Schegloff, 2007). Demonstrations are more reliable as evidence of understanding. Problems of understanding will be analyzed in WP 3 and 4 by identifying other-initiations of repair, especially requests for clarification (Mazeland & Zaman-Zadeh, 2004) and understanding checks, in which participants seek confirmation of a candidate understanding (Kurhila, 2006). Misunderstandings will be analyzed by studying third-position repair, i.e. a speaker’s rejection and correction of the interlocutor’s display of understanding (Schegloff, 1992). In L2 contexts, problem indications are potentially sensitive in that they may highlight the linguistic deficiencies of the L2 speaker and may consequently be avoided. For instance, L2 speakers sometimes produce minimal responses (nods and continuers) that are conventionally interpreted as claims of understanding even when they do not actually understand (Landmark et al., 2017), or they let potential problems pass and wait to see if they are clarified in the subsequent talk (Firth, 1996). First language speakers, on the other hand, may avoid initiating repair and instead embed corrections in sequentially relevant turns (Brouwer et al., 2004). All these avoidance strategies may lead to non-understanding or misunderstanding and will thus be given special analytical attention in WP2.

To analyze how the interviewers seek to avert comprehension problems (WP3), we will study instances of preemptive self-repair, i.e., how speakers insert or modify elements in an utterance-in-progress in view of clarifying semantic aspects. An example of how this may be done is inserting parenthetical vocabulary explanations in the course of a turn-at-talk (Svennevig, 2010). We will also analyze other types of preemptive practices, e.g., delivering complex turns in installments and providing room for the interlocutor to provide feedback along the way (Svennevig, 2018).

1.5 Ethical perspectives

As the project involves gathering highly sensitive data, the collection and management of data follow strict ethical requirements. The video and audio recordings of interviews are collected by permission of the Director of Public Prosecutions (Riksadvokaten), the Norwegian Center for Research Data (NSD), the Data Protection Officer at the University of Oslo and the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (Personvernombud), and are carried out in collaboration with Police Departments in Oslo and Trondheim. The collection and management of the data will be in accordance with the guidelines of the Norwegian Center for Research Data and the Norwegian National Research Ethics Committees. The participants will be informed about the project, asked for consent and informed that they have the right to information about the processing of their personal data, the right of access to the personal data gathered, the right to ask for their personal data to be corrected, and the right to request that their personal data be erased. The recordings will be stored on an encrypted server with 2-factor authentication managed by the University of Oslo’s Services for Sensitive Data (TSD), to which only project members have access. The data will be anonymized in that all person-identifying information will be erased from the recordings and replaced by pseudonyms in the transcripts. In presentations and publications from the project, data excerpts will be further anonymized by video and audio filters. The data management is under constant monitoring by the Norwegian Center for Research Data and the Data Protection Officers at the respective universities.

2. Impact

2.1 Potential for academic impact of the research project

The proposed project is the first large-scale study, anywhere in the world, of interviews with L2 speakers, conducted without interpreters. The study is based on a unique corpus of police interviews and we expect it to have a significant academic impact in several disciplines. First, it will make an important theoretical contribution to Forensic Linguistics and Sociolinguistics by elucidating the language ideologies that inform police interview manuals and the actual interviews conducted with L2 speakers. Secondly, it will make a major empirical contribution by providing (a) insights into the challenges common for uninterpreted investigative interviews with L2 speakers and the effects of language choice (L2 Norwegian vs. English) and setting (at the station vs. at the scene) and (b) new knowledge about communication strategies that prove effective in overcoming these challenges. It will also offer new insights into the effects of different interviewing practices on such fundamental concerns as mutual understanding and freedom of speech. As such, the results are expected to be of vital importance for the academic study of investigative interviewing, both in Norway and internationally, since police interviews in English as a lingua franca have not been studied so far. Also in the fields of SLA and second language interaction, the study will provide new knowledge on challenges associated with communication in a specialized institutional context such as the police interview, and practices that prove effective in overcoming them. Furthermore, by making available the English-language manuals for coding and data analysis in Open Access, it will provide a blueprint for similar research in other countries.

2.2 Potential for societal impact of the research project

Previous research on police interrogation in the UK and Nordic countries has resulted in dramatic changes in interviewing techniques. Nowadays, the Norwegian Police University College trains students to use KREATIV, an information-gathering technique, rather than older methods focused on eliciting confessions (Fahsing & Kepinska Jacobsen, 2016). Unfortunately, the research that led to these changes has been limited to interviews with native speakers. Future police officers receive no training on how to interview L2 speakers, when to call an interpreter and how to avoid comprehension problems in uninterpreted interviews. The societal impact of this project addresses several tiers, aiming to inform practice, policy and society at large.

At the first tier, we will use the project’s scientific findings to articulate recommendations for best practices in uninterpreted interviews with L2 speakers and thus contribute to improvement in the training of police investigators. These recommendations will be disseminated within an existing framework of collaboration. Between 2019 and 2021, Pawel Urbanik has conducted several workshops on L2-related challenges at the Police University College, based on the scientific findings of the project “Communicating Rights in Police Investigative Interviews”. These workshops have raised awareness among KREATIV instructors of L2-related challenges in understanding legal rights and equipped them with useful recommendations on communication of rights in the L2. Kristina Kepinska Jakobsen will ensure that members of the research team will continue to give lectures at postgraduate studies, workshops, training courses, seminars and conferences at the Police University College and KRIPOS (The National Criminal Investigation Service). We also plan to develop a curriculum for post graduate studies in investigative interviewing and KREATIV workshops that addresses the challenges of second language interviews. By doing so, the project meets the need for strengthening the training in investigative interviewing expressed in several strategy reports, such as Avhørsmetodikk i politiet (‘Police interview methods’) and Handlingsplan for løft av etterforsknings­feltet (‘Action plan for quality improvement of the investigation field’).

The second tier of potential social impact targets policy makers. A Police University College research report will be prepared for the police and the Director for Public Prosecutions, providing recommendations for developing guidelines on how to communicate with L2 speakers in the absence of interpreters.

At the third tier, project-based publications in mass media will also have a broader public impact in contributing to a more equal and respectful treatment of members of vulnerable populations by Norwegian law enforcement and strengthening public trust in law enforcement institutions.

We also aim for societal impact beyond Norway. In 2015, one of the project contributors, Aneta Pavlenko, convened a group of linguists, psychologists, lawyers, and interpreters in Australia, England and Wales, and the USA to issue Guidelines for Communication of Rights to Non-Native Speakers of English (CoRG, 2015). In the six years since their publication, the Guidelines have been endorsed by many professional organizations, introduced as evidence in court cases in Australia and the USA and cited by judges as a standalone document. The purpose of the present project is to create Guidelines for best practices in securing due process and understanding in uninterpreted interviews with L2 speakers applicable in both English- and non-English-speaking contexts.

2.3 Measures for communication and exploitation

Since the project addresses both academic and professional audiences, the dissemination of the findings will vary accordingly. Our academic target group consists of scholars from a variety of disciplines who study police interrogation: forensic linguists, applied linguists, conversation analysts and researchers in the fields of policing, multilingualism and SLA. They are the ones who are likely to benefit most from the novel theoretical perspectives, empirical findings and methodological innovations of the project, including data collection manuals placed in Open Access. The key dissemination venues include relevant conferences (see 3.2) and scientific articles in top-ranked international and Scandinavian journals (see 1.3).   

Another important group of stakeholders are practitioners in the field of law enforcement, such as KREATIV instructors from different regions in Norway, police officers, investigators, lecturers at police university colleges and law enforcement officials. To ensure that as many police professionals as possible will benefit from this research, we will publish main findings and recommendation for best practice in Norwegian, in addition to scientific articles in English. Articles in Norwegian will appear in specialist media, such as Politiforum, which is read by a great number of professionals, 2) law journals such as Tidsskrift for Strafferett (Journal of Criminal Law), which is read by lawyers, prosecutors, researchers of criminal justice and law, policy makers and police professionals, and 3) a research publication of the Police University College (Rapport – PHS Forskning/ Report - Police University College Research). The PI, Pawel Urbanik and the PhD Fellow will be responsible for the articles, while the report will be prepared by the whole core group.

Through direct contact with these stakeholders, we have the opportunity for an active engagement with future police investigators. This provides us with an arena where we can discuss our research-based findings with practitioners, who have first-hand experience with the activities. Such user engagement and feedback will allow us to identify examples of best practice that are more likely to have a real impact. To draw attention to our research, we will invite representatives from the National Police Directorate (POD), The Director of Public Prosecutions and the Regional Public Prosecution Offices, the National Expertise Committee at KRIPOS and employees at the Police University College to a final 2-day seminar (see 3.2). Kristina Kepinska Jakobsen will play a key role in selecting relevant representatives.

In order to reach a broader audience, the contributors will work with their respective public relations departments to publish the findings in mainstream media. The project will also post updated information on the UiO website created for the Communication of Rights project.

3. Implementation

3.1 Project manager and project group

The project will be hosted by the University of Agder. It will be managed by Professor Jan Svennevig and include a project team consisting of five researchers. The team members represent relevant academic expertise in the theoretical fields involved in the project that guarantees its successful implementation.

1) Principal Investigator, Dr. Jan Svennevig is Professor at the University of Agder as well as Research Professor at MultiLing – Center for Multilingualism in Society across the Lifespan at the University of Oslo, a Center of Excellence funded by RCN (2013-2023). His research deals with Conversation Analysis in multilingual settings. He has conducted extensive research on conversations between first and second language speakers, with an emphasis on practices used by first language speakers for establishing, checking and securing mutual understanding. He has also published studies on sources of misunderstanding and hostility in intercultural and multilingual conversations. Svennevig has extensive experience in research management from his role as PI of the research project Language and Communication in Multilingual Speakers with Dementia (funded by RCN, 2016-2020), as well as co-PI with Aneta Pavlenko of  Communicating Rights in Police Investigative Interviews (funded by MultiLing, 2018-2021).

2) Dr. Aneta Pavlenko is Research Professor II at MultiLing and an internationally renowned expert on Second Language Acquisition and Forensic Linguistics, with more than a hundred published articles and book chapters and ten books. She has co-authored the international Guidelines for Communicating Rights to non-native speakers of English (2015), published articles on this topic in linguistics and psychology journals and in publications for criminal defense lawyers and testified as expert witness in court cases involving communication of the Miranda rights. Her work on communication of rights to non-native speakers of English was recognized with two international awards.

3) Dr. Paweł Urbanik is Associate Professor at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU). He has been post-doc in the on-going project Communicating Rights in Police Investigative Interviews, where he was responsible for collecting, anonymizing, transcribing and categorizing the database of police interviews, collecting consent, and securing the collaboration on research and dissemination with the Oslo Police Department and the Norwegian Police University College. He has published on investigative interviewing and disseminated research in a number of workshops for police instructors and investigators.

4) Kristina Kepinska Jakobsen is Associate Professor at the Norwegian Police University College, where she has conducted research on police interviews with victims and is responsible for post graduate studies in investigative interviewing. She is the leader of the research group “Police investigation methodology” and has led the revision of the KREATIV courses for police instructors and investigators in Norway. Her involvement in investigative interview training will facilitate both bringing practice perspectives into the research design and disseminating the results of the research to police professionals.  

Each of the researchers contributes to the project with their own field of specialization, which complements the work of the others and thus makes the achievement of the project’s goals feasible. The expertise of Jan Svennevig in the analysis of conversations between L1 and L2 speakers is complemented by Aneta Pavlenko’s expertise in Second Language Acquisition and Forensic Linguistics. Pawel Urbanik adds considerable expertise in Interactional Linguistics and the theory of investigative interviewing in Norway and beyond. Kristina Kepinska Jakobsen contributes her expertise in police interviews and the KREATIV approach and experience in arranging training courses for police instructors.

 

References

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