Negotiating converso identities in the inquisition courtroom

This paper explores the processes of identity construction and negotiation through face work in a Portuguese Inquisition record, corresponding to the trial for Judaism of Catarina de Orta. Concentrating as much on the inquisitor’s questions as on the answers offered by the defendant, I show here that impoliteness and self-politeness co-occur in interaction in the Portuguese Inquisition courtroom discourse. On the one hand, the inquisitor makes abundant use of impoliteness strategies with at least three main aims: to exert his power over the defendant, to trigger specific negative emotions, and to attack her face and her credibility. On the other hand, the defendant’s answers display numerous features of self-politeness, aimed at saving her face from the inquisitor’s attacks and accusations. It is precisely through the interplay of impoliteness and self-politeness that the two competing narratives proposed by the accuser and the defendant are constructed and re-elaborated during every interrogation.