The Research Of Hedges In Legal Fact Construction Of Criminal Courtroom

Fuzziness is the inherent attribute of human language.People often use hedges to realize their communication intention in language communication.It is well known that hedges exist in all kinds of fields.Scholars have investigated hedges in the courtroom from the perspective of pragmatic function,speaker’s identity and rights,and cognitive psychology,but few have investigated hedges in the courtroom from the perspective of legal fact construction theory.The corpus of this study comes from China Court Trial Online and Trial Scene.Based on Yang Bo’s theory of legal fact construction theory,this thesis constructs an analytical framework of hedges in criminal court trials and analyzes the hedges from 10 criminal court trials of China Court Trial Online and Trial Scene.The legal fact construction theory divides the participants of the construction of legal facts into judges,prosecutors,lawyers,accused,and witnesses,and divides the three stages of the construction of legal facts into the presentation,co-construction,and authentication of legal facts.According to the participants and three stages of legal fact construction in the legal fact construction theory,this thesis studies the hedges used by each stage and different trial participants.The specific research questions are as follows:(1)What are the types of hedges in the construction of legal facts in a criminal court trial?(2)What are the characteristics of hedges used by participants with different identities in different stages of legal fact construction?(3)What are the characteristics of hedges used in different stages of legal fact construction in a criminal court trial? This study uses the combination of qualitative analysis and quantitative analysis.This study mainly analyzes the application of hedges in the construction of legal facts,analyzes the features and intentions of hedges used by different litigation participants in different stages of legal fact construction,and analyzes the features of hedges used in different stages of legal fact construction.It also makes statistics and analyses on the frequency of hedges used in different stages,the frequency of different types of hedges,and the frequency of hedges used by different trial participants.The research shows that the appropriate information hedges,possibilistic hedges,moderating hedges,self-protective hedges,affinity hedges,and discourse cohesion hedges are divided by Cui Fengjuan,Yu Cuihong,and Song Yanmei(2017)are all used in the construction of legal facts in criminal cases.The presentation stage of legal facts is the initial stage of the construction of legal facts.The purpose of this stage is to introduce the case facts that the prosecution has mastered to the court and bring a lawsuit to the court.The trial participants at this stage are judges and prosecutors.Judges use appropriate information hedges and self-protective hedges to reflect the fairness and authority of judges.The prosecutor uses information appropriate hedges to make the case facts clear and uses self-protective hedges to enhance the objectivity of the stated case facts.The co-construction of legal facts is jointly participated by judges,prosecutors,lawyers,defendants,and witnesses.This stage has the most participants in the trial,and the types and intentions of hedges are also the most abundant.Judges will use information appropriate hedges to make the facts of the case clearer and use self-protective hedges to show neutrality and authority.The prosecutors use information appropriate hedges to clarify the legal facts,use selfprotective hedges to strengthen the constructed legal facts,and use affinity hedges to shorten the distance from the listener and enhance the persuasion of his point of view.Lawyers use information appropriate hedges to make the legal facts more clear or vaguer,use self-protective hedges to quote the views of others to construct or deconstruct the legal facts to enhance the objectivity of their views,and use affinity hedges to shorten the distance from the listener to obtain the trust of the listener.The accused’s language is not highly standardized.The accused used the six types of hedges studied in this research in the criminal trial.The accused use these hedges to deconstruct the existing facts and construct legal facts in favor of his side,trying not to bear the consequences of the crime.The task of the witness in the co-construction stage of legal facts is to assist all parties involved in the trial to construct clear legal facts.The witness will use appropriate information and self-protective hedges to show the accuracy and objectivity of his testimony.The authenticating of legal facts construction is the last stage of the trial.The judge will use information appropriate hedges to make the legal facts clearer or hide some inappropriate information and use self-protective hedges to enhance the authority of the trial.In terms of frequency,information-appropriate hedges are used the most frequently;The frequency of hedges used by the accused is the highest and the types are the most abundant.This study aims to provide a new perspective for the study of hedges in courtroom discourse and arouse people’s attention to the study of hedges from the perspective of legal fact construction theory.