Multilingual police interaction: a conversation analysis of crime control in border checks

Abstract In today’s global world, many people can move across borders as travelling has become much easier in many ways. However, the securitization of borders has not been relaxed, implying that multilingual police-civilian interactions are becoming more ‘commonplace’. Within the framework of conversation analysis, this article presents a novel study on multilingual police border checks. These are police encounters “on the ground” (not in police custody), and as such, there are no interpreters or language experts present. Focusing on the analysis of a single-case police encounter in which participants have to rely on a second language (English) that none of them are proficient in (i.e., ‘novice-novice interaction’), this article examines practices that speakers use to resolve a crime involving the illegal possession of drugs. In addition, some complementary findings from other border checks are presented. Overall, this study shows that participants attempt to achieve intersubjectivity by using interactional (and embodied) practices (e.g., word choice, repair, speech simplification) oriented toward recipient design. By doing so, participants shape the progressivity of the encounter and ultimately achieve their objectives in the interaction. As such, this article shows how a high-stake (police) multilingual situation can also be resolved in the absence of a language expert.