Forensic Linguistics in Italy: Discourse Markers in Asylum Interpreting – Construing Evidence

Analysing asylum determination procedures occupies a key position in migration studies. Asylum interviews aim to obtain complete, reliable, and useable information fairly. Reliance on the product of interviews has attracted increased interest in Applied Linguistics. Yet the critical role of language in constructing evidence is little acknowledged in legal decision-making. This chapter tracks the interplay between small-scale pragmatic processes and large-scale discourse procedures with a microsociolinguistic and cognitive-pragmatic analysis of eight interviews with Nigerian asylum applicants in Italy, focusing on interpreters’ use of discourse markers. The latter is mostly found to hamper questioning strategies, ultimately influencing power relations and rapport building between primary participants.