43 The Interrogator and the Interrogated: The Questioning Process in Philippine Courtroom Discourse Marilu Rañosa-Madrunio University of Santo Tomas, Philippines mrmadrunio@mnl.ust.edu.ph Courtroom interaction in judicial settings differs from ordinary conversational discourse in that it is based on institutional modes of talk. As such, it is the lawyer that controls the topic and de- cides who can talk and when the question and answer exchange may commence and end. This paper investigates the questioning process in Philippine courtrooms, specifically the typology and structure of the lawyers‟ questions and the turn-taking system between the interrogator and the interrogated that show how power is enacted and legitimated in the discourse genre of direct and cross-examinations. Selected court proceedings served as corpus of the study. Most of the materials were sourced from RTC Branch 80 in Malolos City in the Philippine province of Bu- lacan, which is classified as a Special Court for Drug Cases. The court was included in a pilot project conducted by the Committee on Linguistic Concerns of the Supreme Court of the Phil- ippines in 2008 which directed the use of Filipino in courtroom proceedings. 1.0 Introduction With the introduction of Forensic Linguistics as a new field of Applied Linguistics in the 1990s, courtroom interaction has increasingly become an interesting area to study. However, unlike ordinary conversations, the structure of courtroom discourse differs in that it is based on institutional modes of discourse where courtroom players observe rules executed by the court‟s jury, or in the case of the Philippines, by the court‟s judge(s) and/or lawyers. One contentious issue in the legal setting is the place of English (as well as other languages) in a country‟s legal system, which impacts on the pacing of court proceedings and the rendering of decisions by the court‟s jury or judges. Another is the variety of English used. These are critical components especially in countries where English is the language of controlling domains like government and law. It is to be noted that the paradigm of World Englishes closely affects the use of public discourses. Thus, verbal encounters in the courtroom should be properly studied as there are restrictions observed most especially if the said domain is guided by institutional norms. Most likely, if a judicial system employs English, then legalese will take its rightful place in the legal process. In the Philippines, English remains to be the language of legislation and of the court. Being in a multi-lingual country, people may experience some challenges as a result. There have been some minor attempts by noted legal experts to introduce the use of the country‟s national language into the judicial system, such as the translation done by Judge Cesar Peralejo who worked on Filipino versions of the Revised Rules on Civil Procedure, the Revised Rules on Evidence and a legal dictionary as well as a judicial decision rendered in court by Jose dela Rama in response to an appeal written in Filipino by journalists prosecuted for libel (Reyes 2007 in Powell, 2012). Very few lawyers, though, have attempted to carry out legal proceedings in the national language except for a pilot project conducted by the Committee on Linguistic Concerns of the Supreme Court of the Philippines starting in 2008, which Philippine Journal of Linguistics 43 (2013)