Restorative Justice, a comparative analysis of discursive practices and dialogistic exchanges in the USA and Italy

Restorative Justice (RJ), with its notion of dealing with the causes of crime by changing behaviours, has captured imaginations around the world (Tickell and Akester 2004), not only within the usual boundary of legal domains, but also in the fields of social works and contiguous areas. Not an originally European notion, RJ began as an experiment to seek alternatives to criminal prosecution and conventional sentencing, especially where aboriginal populations were involved. It enacts a process whereby parties with a stake in a specific offence collectively resolve how to deal with the aftermath of the offence and its implications for the future. The practices of RJ revolve around the process of mediation conducted through a sequence of dialogues between mediators and victims, mediators and offenders, then mediators and all people involved in the harmful event. Such dialogistic exchanges can be of great (socio/pragma)linguistic interest and also of cross-cultural relevance insomuch as RJ practices take place ??? with mores-sensitive variations ??? in Australia, New Zealand, the United States, as well as in Austria, Norway, England, Wales and other European States. In Italy its application is still tentative and limited, with strong emphasis on privacy. Some basic values/commitments are shared: the declared aims of RJ (or ???transformative justice) essentially involve ???restoring relationships, with establishing or re-establishing social equality in relationships??? (Llewellyn and Howse 1999: 1), thus promoting repair, reconciliation and encouraging a sense of agency. A major emphasis is laid on the victims??? needs, on constructive healing processes and on the safety of survivors, whereas the focus in ordinary criminal justice is on offenders and on lawbreaking as a concept. The negotiatory skills of mediators (i.e. equally partial ???circle-keepers/facilitators???) play a pivotal role in these exchanges where features of affectual intensity and force are displayed, within the context of (socio)legal interactions. Legal language discursive practices in relation to text-internal and text-external factors (Bahtia 2010, Candlin 2009, Jaworski and Coupland 2008) have attracted growing critical attention, especially as far as interdiscursivity is concerned: professional and cultural practices in Restorative Mediation are a case in point. In our study we analyzed qualitative samples of legal mediation linguistic exchanges and interactional moves from a cross-cultural perspective by comparing US and Italian textual data and by evaluating them in their contextual implications in the light of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), particularly of the Appraisal Framework (Martin and White 2005, 2007; Bednarek 2010) and of the notion of interdiscursivity. From our comparative analysis the US and Italian mediators attitude emerge as basically similar, apart from lingua-cultural differences. More specifically, the use of bureaucratic language is decidedly more consistent in Italian mediator discourse, together with the resort to longer sentences and subjunctives, especially in written texts and preparatory scripts. Whereas globally the language of mediation dialogistically refers to shared values and visions, and is better understood in terms of Affect, Judgement and Appreciation, in Italy the lack of publicity and dissemination together with an occasional penchant for bureaucratic language seems to make these exchanges less effective and more opaque.