Parameter Manipulation As Interactional Strategies In Courtroom Trials

The present study, falling into the scope of socio-pragmatics, is an examination of courtroom interaction which is considered as a pragmatic process as well as a social process. From a pragmatic point of view, courtroom interaction constitutes a social process during which both the judge and the prosecutor are observed to use various interactional strategies to accomplish their goals in interaction. They manipulate such social parameters as power, social distance, size of imposition, rights and obligations to realize their strategies in order to achieve their aims in communication.On the basis of Jenny A. Thomas's (1995, 1996) theory of dynamic pragmatics, a theoretical framework has been proposed, which takes into account the strategies exploited by the judge or the prosecutor, the parameters manipulated, effects produced by parameter manipulation and the aims achieved through employing these strategies.The proposed theoretical framework is applied to the analysis of the data collected from a Chinese intermediate people's court in the hope of unveiling the process of courtroom interaction in the Chinese context.The present study identifies two types of strategies, i.e. dominance and mitigation. The former includes directive speech acts, counter-challenge acts, rhetorical questioning, repeated questioning, privacy-related questioning, satirical comments, interruptions and reformulations, while the latter chiefly tag questions. When the judge or the prosecutor employs a strategy to enhance his/her dominance, he/she is obliged to manipulate the parameter of power. The parameters of rights and obligations are only manipulated when it is necessary. The major purpose that the judge or the prosecutor wants to achieve by employing these strategies is to maintain courtroom order, or draw out the truth from thedefendant, or control the flow of information, or refute the defendant's arguments, etc. When the judge or the prosecutor makes use of the mitigation strategy, it is necessary for him/her to manipulate the parameter of social distance. In doing so, the judge or the prosecutor will mitigate his/her dominance so as to ease the defendant's nervousness, timidity and fearfulness. With regard to the parameter of size of imposition, it is, according to the findings of this thesis, usually suspended in courtroom interaction.