This paper investigates the legal-pragmatic functions of tag questions in the Shipman trial, analysing their significance in courtroom discourse. Although declarative and yes/no questions were prevalent in barristers' discourse, tag questions, despite their overall infrequency, proved to be strategically important during cross-examinations. A corpus-based forensic discourse analysis was utilised. Quantitative research revealed patterns in questions and their distribution across examination and cross-examination. Subsequently, a legal-pragmatic analysis examined the formal qualities of tag questions, encompassing polarity and grammatical structure, to elucidate their legal-pragmatic functions. The analysis demonstrated that reversed polarity tag questions (e.g., positive-negative) have specific legal-pragmatic functions: articulating the lawyer's epistemic position, verifying or soliciting information, reconstructing the defendant's identification, and questioning the credibility of witnesses' responses. The prosecution utilised these strategies to depict Dr Shipman as duplicitous, whilst the defence employed them to alleviate juror prejudice towards the defendant. Constant polarity tag questions (e.g., positive-positive) were deliberately crafted to interrogate witnesses' responses. The findings indicate that tag questions, albeit nuanced, are essential in formulating trial strategy, affecting jury perceptions, and crafting legal narratives, highlighting their pragmatic significance in forensic discourse.
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