Death Row Statements: A discourse of play

In this article, I discuss Death Row Statements from the perspective of ludic language within the context of ritual. Beyond its role as a form of deterrent, means of punishment or manifestation of state power, execution can be seen to function as a form of community ritual, where individuals who are a threat to society are removed. Execution has many ritual features, from its liminal spatio-temporal context to the precise ordering of events and, with reference to Huizinga's conception of play' (encompassing serious activities such as litigation, war and trade), can be considered a ludic activity. I argue that the ludic nature of execution is manifested in the language of the last words of the condemned. Employing Cook's taxonomy of the features of Language Play (dealing with both serious and light-hearted uses of language), I discuss the effect that the ludic nature of state execution has on the formal, semantic and pragmatic nature of the language. I argue that Death Row Statements represent a discourse of play in relation to both the language of last statements and the character of the event.