EVALUATION IN POLICE WRITTEN REPORTS IN ENGLISH

Abstract

This paper deals with the use of evaluative devices in police written reports. A police officer, as a representative of an institution, bears in mind the main goal of a report, i.e. presenting and explaining facts to the legal audience and convincing them of the propriety of the decisions s/he made in execution of his duties. As far as his actions and decisions are concerned, s/he expects as low input of contradictory opinions as possible. Police reports ought to be strictly informative. This fact defines their language in terms of impersonality and objective reference to sources of information. In this respect, direct assessments of facts and authorial voice are highly suppressed in the texts, although the reports inevitably reflect personal involvement. Objectivity and distancing are expected and presumed by both the author and the audience. However, this stereotype often confronts with indirect or covert means by which the author positions himself/herself with regard to the information given in the reports. This short analysis has found that police officers are very careful when it comes to expressing their own interpretation of events, other people’s behavior or propositions. They avoid speculating, making subjective judgments without the support of solid evidence. Police officers often rely on perceptual type of evidence for their claims (I could clearly see, hear, smell, observe) and consider such sensory experience more substantial. Also, they are prone to making negative rather than positive evaluations, criticizing rather than affirming other people’s behavior and actions. Such evaluation is rarely given explicitly, but frequently permeates the context.