In Pursuit of an Expert Identity: A Case Study of Experts in the Historical Courtroom

There are certain areas of study where present-day semiotics of law can learn from history. This study examines the discursive history and historical courtroom discourse of expert witnesses in eighteenth-century American court. The aim of the study is to explore the use of linguistic strategies and resources in constructing an expert identity in relation to the factors which influence those choices. Instead of taking expertise as being lodged in the pre-given label, such as a doctor, this article argues that such an identity has to be constructed and negotiated, and reveals how such an identity is constructed and negotiated through trial talk during a hostile discursive environment. The historical courtroom is an interesting site in this regard, as it was the period when expert witnesses did not enjoy the same social status as their present-day peers, which came with the absence of discursive privileges as well. It is found that experts mainly relied on expansions of response as the resources to counterbalance skeptical attitudes and hostile attempts aimed to undermine their testimony that accompanied their vulnerable status and image and to gain discursive control during the interaction.