Appendix A
Sample Dialogue from COPS
The following are portions of data used in the study. They are presented
as examples of categories of crime and the type of language used with them. I use
the categories of mild, moderate and severe to delineate types of crime. The
speech situation is noted in parentheses.
Mild
Al.
Officer: Step out, son, walk with me over here. I saw you smoking
crack.
(Suspect smoking crack cocaine)
Officer: I am not going to let you hurt yourself.
(Individual bent on bodily harm)
A2.
Officer: What can I do for you?
Wait here. Let me go talk to her.
Why not give me a rundown on what happened?
(Individual acting irrationally)
A3.
Officer: What are we doing here? Does your wife know where you are?
Are you practicing safe sex? How many times have you been
arrested for this?
(Solicitation o f prostitution)
Moderate
Bl.
Officer: How you doing? You have a license? You have a warrant?
You driving the truck without a license? Is there anything in
the truck you don’t want me to find?
Officer: What’s goin’ on? What happened? Stand still for a minute.
Were you parked? Stand still, sir.
(Male prostitution)
B2.
Officer: You don’t have any drugs, do you?
You don’t know anything about a gun?
(Drug suspect)