Historical voices, collective memory and interdiscursive trauma in the legal order

<jats:p> This study examines how collective memory and cultural trauma inhere in the multimodal interplay between macro structures of space-time and microcosmic action. Using a criminal trial as data, we show how collective memories and cultural sentiments function in the multimodal details of poetic oratory and emotionally charged speech to frame evidence, construct legal identity and shape the interpretation of testimony. Legal actors integrate language, gesture and gaze to shift the plane of legal reality into a sacred performance, a solemn and co-operative ritual that contains thoroughly unveiled allusions to the assassinations of President John F Kennedy and Senator Robert F Kennedy. In so doing, lawyers and witness co-construct an emergent space for jurors to step into history and connect to national tragedy as a socio-legal strategy. </jats:p>