Two modes of referring to the case file in the courtroom: The use of indirect reported text and text-as-addressed speech in case summaries

This paper analyzes summaries of the written case file which judges produce at the onset of pre-parole pluridisciplanary hearings for assessing the future dangerousness of an inmate. Such summaries of the case file are a highly reflexive discursive practice, as the inmate who appears before the committee is simultaneously the object of the written expert assessments that are re-enacted by the judge and the recipient of these reenactments. Both the production of the summary as an extended turn-at-talk and the procedures for referring to the file are sensitive to this "participative dilemma". Two different modes for referring to the file are identified: "indirect reported text" and "text-as-addressed speech." Each has different sequential implications and invokes different epistemic domains and asymmetries.