A Study On The Resistant Interaction Of The Power Of Discourse In Chinese Criminal Court

The power of discourse is a hot topic in linguistics,sociology and many interdisciplinary subjects,on which profound studies have been conducted from a variety of disciplinary perspectives.As an interdisciplinary subject of linguistics and law,Forensic linguistics naturally shows great interest in the study of the power of discourse.Courtroom trial is a process entangled by conflict and cooperation,in which participants,driven by their different goals,actively participate in the pursuit and game of the power of discourse.Therefore,the court is an ideal place to examine the interaction of the power of discourse.The previous studies on the power of discourse in court focus on the powerful participants and their discourses,with a lack of comprehensive and systematic study undertaken on the resistance of the powerless participants.In fact,how the powerless participants resist and how the resistance affects both the relationship of the power of discourse and the goal relationship is a project worthy of in-depth study.Based on 1.05 million-word transcription of 30 Chinese criminal trials in recent years as corpora,and under the guidance of the doctrine of power and goal-driven principle as the main theoretical reference,this dissertation describes the behavioral patterns of resistant interaction,concludes the universal forms of feedback,and constructs a multi-dimensional and multi-leveled explanatory context framework in Chinese criminal trials.This dissertation has mainly achieved the following findings:Goal orientation is the fundamental attribute and underlying motivation of institutional conversation.Goal and the power of discourse are interdependent and mutually restrictive.When people in a certain conversational context engage in a communication on a given topic,the interaction between goal and the power of discourse takes place.Driven by their goals,the powerful participants implement discursive control while the powerless participants react in compliant or resistant way.Resistant interaction in this dissertation is defined as respondents’ opposition to the control exerted by inquirers,which is embodied in the responses in violation of cooperative principle or（and）politeness principle.Resistant interaction is essentially an marked interaction model that attempts to change the structure of the power of discourse in an established social relationship.Resistant interaction of the power of discourse in institutional conversation can be described within the following analytical framework:（1）In an institutional conversation on a specific topic,the powerful participants（P）and the powerless participants（N-P）are in a conflicting or neutral goal relationship;（2）Driven by the current goals,P implements discursive control,while N-P adopts corresponding speech acts and discourse strategies to resist it,which produces two types of resistant interaction modes:implicit resistance and explicit resistance;（3）P provides corresponding feedback according to N-P’s resistance,which can be classified into positive feedback,neutral feedback and negative feedback.If P gives N-P positive feedback or neutral feedback,it means that P has given up discursive control and N-P has realized the communicative goal;On the other hand,if P gives N-P negative feedback,it means that P has reinforced discursive control and N-P has not achieved the conversational goal for the time being or has suffered frustration in the pursuit of the conversational goal;（4）In response to P’s negative feedback,N-P may give up resistance and implement compliant interaction,or continue to implement resistant interaction,which will loop over and over again till either of the two parties in the conversation achieves the conversational goal;（5）In the current conversation,if P finally achieves the conversational goal,the relationship of the power of discourse between P and N-P may be maintained or strengthened;otherwise,the relationship may be adjusted or even reconstructed;（6）the maintenance or change of the original relationship of the power of discourse and the（un）realization of the current goals jointly suggest P and N-P evaluate the discursive cost to be paid and profits and losses in pursuing the goals in the new situational context,which helps construct their own new goals and goal relationship.By analyzing the power of discourse of the main participants from the four dimensions of physical symbols,speech acts,conversational structure and discourse style,we can construct the pyramid-shape structure of the power of discourse in court.This structure is roughly divided into three levels:At the top are presiding judges,judges and people’s assessors;in the middle are public prosecutors,defenders and agents ad litem;at the bottom are defendants,victims,witnesses and expert witnesses.Due to the consideration of gaining advantages and avoiding harm,and identification with their unfavorable status,defendants exhibit a general resistance to the powerful participants in the form of strategic discourse,reflecting defendants;efforts to adjust the established relationship of the power of discourse.The resistant interaction of the power of discourse in court includes implicit resistant interaction and explicit resistant interaction.Implicit resistant interaction is embodied in mitigative response and evasive response.Mitigative response is to reconfigure the information by employing certain verbal methods to reduce the degree of confession of the facts or to weaken the allegations of the crimes by others,which is represented by understatement,rationalization of one’s behaviors,praise of one’s conducts,and aggravation of others’ responsibilities.Evasive response can be divided into indirect evasion and direct evasion.The former refers to the fact that defendants selectively provide less relevant information or ambiguous information in order to keep direct conflict to a minimum and it includes vague answers,code switching,incomplete answers and digressive answers.The latter refers to the fact that defendants do not provide answers aiming at addressing the questions at all and it includes refusing to answer and remaining silent.Neither mitigative response nor evasive response satisfies inquirers’ expectation of answers,which causes asymmetry of conversational information and therefore a certain degree of confrontation between the two parties.Explicit resistant interaction is embodied in refuting response and counterattacking response.Refuting response refers to defendants’ challenge,opposition or refutation of the propositions or questions raised by inquirers,usually with submission of their own claims.It includes cancellation of presupposition of defendants’ guilt,opposition of the content and way of questioning,correction of propositions and challenge of three qualities of evidences.Counterattacking response refers to defendants’ provocative discourses towards inquirers or other court participants that harms the other party’s interests in an active manner instead of passive manner,which includes overthrowing previous confessions,false statements,psychological deterrence and implementing speech acts in contempt of court.Both refuting response and counterattacking response produce a high degree of resistance and coercion and they are more likely to cause a higher degree of conflict between the two parties in the conversation.Resistant interaction reflects defendant’s unilateral efforts to respond to inquirers’ discursive control,and inquirers’ feedback can fully reflect the process and effect of the game of the power of discourse.According to inquirers’ attitudes towards defendants’ resistance,feedback can be divided into positive feedback,neutral feedback and negative feedback,among which negative feedback,the most common one,is essentially anti-resistance or re-control.The common feedback strategies in court include minimal feedback,topic shifting,repeating or reformulation,repeating or rephrasing of questions,contrasting,giving up/taking over turns,providing third-part comments,giving orders and giving warnings or admonition.There is not a one-to-one correspondence between feedback type and feedback strategy.Some feedback strategies have multiple possibilities,the type of which needs to be judged according to specific contexts.In addition,the feedback in courtroom conversations has characteristics different from those in other institutional conversations,such as third-party subjects of feedback,composite feedback strategies and diverse feedback structures.In addition to the immediate feedback from inquirers,defendant’s resistance is also reflected in subsequent feedback,which can be judged from the trial procedure and the case fact.The former includes maintaining or adjusting the trial procedure and announcing the adjournment,and the latter includes（not）adopting evidence and（not）ascertaining legal facts.Resistant interaction and its feedback in court are restricted by a variety of factors,which form a multi-dimensional and multi-leveled constraining context framework.At the macro level,traditional legal culture determines the foundation of China’s judicial system and judicial practice,while modern legal culture,especially modern criminal procedure culture influences the direction and purpose of the current criminal procedure,the relationship between the participants in court,and the discourses of the participants.At the middle level,the situational context is the key factor that affects defendants’courtroom discourses,including the physical scene of the court,the degree of goal conflict between the two interlocutors,and the degree of dominance of inquirers.At the micro level,individual subjective factors are the most direct contextual constraints,including education level or cognitive ability,social class,language,age,gender and so on.The analytical framework for resistant interaction of the power of discourse driven by goal and the description,induction,and interpretation of the resistant interaction in Chinese criminal trials based on real corpora have theoretical value and referent significance for studies in other institutional conversations.Meanwhile,this dissertation reveals the status quo of criminal courtroom trials in China from the perspective of linguistics,and proposes ways to deepen the reform of court proceedings,which exhibits an effective combination of linguistic and legal studies.