Conviction of Louise Woodward

In this essay i will be writing and explaining how spoken language is used and adapted to influence the jury in the closing argument that convicted Louise Woodward. The prosecutor uses a variety of features in this argument to convince the jury persecute Louse Woodward. I will be going through these techniques and explaining why he uses them to influence the jury. Gerard T Leone Jr was the prosecutor in the case of the death of Mathew Eappen. He uses repetition in the first section of the argument by repeating the victim name, “Mathew Eappen. The repetitions show that he wants the jury to focus his attention on the victim. He wants the jury to feel emotionally connected to Mathew Eappen so it would affect the decision the jury makes. The repetition of “Mathew Eappen” encourages the acceptance of the idea that he was young and already dead because of Louise Woodward. It gives Mathew and the court people a mutual bond. He talk about Mathew Eappen by saying the things he hasn’t done to make the court feel pity toward him by saying that “Mathew Eappen will never take his first step. Mathew Eappen will never say his first word because Mathew Eappen is dead. An additional example of repetition is when the repeats the word explodes” when he talks about how the victims actually died. He repeats and uses this word as he is expected to use powerful language to convince the jury and the word “explodes” has imagery so when he says “Mattie’s head explodes” people visualise this shocking image. This is effective because he could have easily put up pictures of the wound but by making the audience visualise it, in some people minds the wound might appear more serious and horrifying than it was actually in real life.

Another use of imagery is when he talk about the size of the wound . He doesn’t use an adjective or a simile but uses the name of an object to represent the wounds. In this context he uses a goose’s egg. He says in form of a rhetorical question that “she would have seen that goose egg on the back of his head”. He uses a goose egg because when you visualise it is very fragile and easily broken so this is referring to poor Mattie’s skull and that fact it uses a gooses egg over a daily , normal chicken eggs that this wasn’t a ordinary crack but bigger more sever crack which unfortunately cost Mathew Eappen his life.

A technique that he uses is sarcasm; during the last section of the speech is that convicted Louise Woodward. Gerard talk about the testimony Louise gave about the death of Mathew Eappen. She saying the testimony that she popped Mathew on the floor but he replies by saying “that the word popped sounds like the word dropped, that the words popped sounds a little lie tossed. ”This is sarcastic because he wants the people to know for sure that Louise dropped Mathew Eappen which cause his head to “explode. His using sarcasm to tell the jury that Louise Woodward is guilty without tell the jury and court directly that she is guilty. This is effective because not is he accusing her indirectly but he is confirming that the injuries were caused by Louise Woodward. The prosecutor uses many rhetorical questions through out the argument because these make the audience think and have time to answer the questions in the minds even thought Gerard T Leone is not asking for an answer he is giving question after question so the audience can think about them and find out the point he is trying to make.

In the middle of the argument he shows this by saying “Don’t you think she would have seen that goose egg on the back of his head? Don’t you think she would have preceded some swelling, some injury to the back of Mathew Head? ” Another example of him using a rhetorical question is when he says “Why would Sergeant Detective Bill Burn lie? Former marine twenty five years on the force. ”In this context he uses a rhetorical question that is leading so the court will automatically think that what Bill Burn said wasn’t a lie .

The question is leading because he follows the question with “former marine twenty five years on the force. ”This makes Bill sound trustworthy and Louise Woodward guiltier. Using rhetorical questions is great because as a prosecutor you would expect them to question the case and use rhetorical question to convince the court men. The prosecutor has used a variety of techniques through out his argument to convince the jury to convict Louise Woodward. I believe this is a great piece of spoken language as well as having many features the prosecutor is adding emotion and moods by changing some words.

A example of this is when he says “She was bathing Mattie like she was supposed to,’ he uses the name Mattie instead of Mathew because it signifies how young he was and Mattie is the name that the people with the closest relationship would call him such as his parent, so by calling him Mattie he is creating sorrow and pity by talking about the loss of someone so loved. Overall this is a very convincing argument and is structured carefully so all details correspond with each other creating an organised power and strong argument.