A Study Of Interpersonal Meanings Of The Courtroom Language

"Discourse analysis"was first used by US structuralism linguist Harris in his article The Discourse Analysis published in 1952. Afterwards discourse analysis arouses numerous scholars'interests, and they make discourse analysis on different kinds of discourses in various domains and from different angles. However, discourse analysis on courtroom language is still not much, especially, on Continental Law system, such as on Chinese courtroom language is even less. Discourse analysis on the interpersonal meaning of courtroom language from the angle of interpersonal function has not been valued by scholars.This essay attempts to analyze the interpersonal meaning of Chinese courtroom language from the mood and modality on the basis of structure-function linguistics mode made by systematic functional school of Halliday and the Birmingham school. Researchers of functional grammar expound the meaning based on the understanding of language features. The meaning depends on the function, so that the meaning was given more uncertainty. This uncertainty coincides with the uncertainty of legal language. Therefore, through studying the legal language according to the meaning of functional grammar, we can grasp the reflection of meaning when certain meaning is achieved during the usage of language. Through the research method of quantification and description, this paper tries to analyze and generalize the reflection form, frequency and the interpersonal function of mood and modality at the level of discourse analysis, and seek for the relevant explanation. Because it is not allowed to record in a trial, in order to ensure the validity and reliability of the study, the writer has made a careful selection of the data. All the data used in the essay are all from《法庭问答及互动研究》Liao Meizhen(2004) and related legal websites. The courtroom language all can reflect the present situation of the usage of Chinese courtroom language.On the basis of interpersonal functional theory, this essay adopts the study methods of qualitative analysis and quantitative analysis, analyzing the interpersonal meaning of courtroom language and its patterns of manifestation from the mood and modality of language. Through these analyses, this essay finds the systematic functional grammar is suitable for analyzing the courtroom language. Generally speaking, language of courtroom participants is unique because of their respective roles and statuses. For mood system, the judge and the public prosecutor use most of imperatives and interrogatives, which shows that they have the power of discourse and own the priority of starting a new discourse. The defendant has no right to use imperatives and interrogatives and they use many declaratives, which shows that they are in obeying and auxiliary position. Judge can use imperatives to the public prosecutor and the defendant, but the public prosecutor has no right to use imperatives to judge, which indicates that in the Chinese court, judge's right is supreme. For modality system, from the point of quantities of modalisation, the defendant uses metaphor modalisations of high degree, while the judge use metaphor modalisations of low degree, which states that the defendant speaks with high subjective degree and reflects that the defendant tries to convince the judge to believe his certainty about facts of the case. The public prosecutor does not use any metaphor modalisation.This essay is composed of five parts. The first chapter mainly introduces the characteristics and achievements of the researches on the forensic linguistics made by the oversea and domestic scholars. The second chapter is the background of theory. It makes an introduction of interpersonal meaning and the methods of realization. It also put an emphasis on courtroom language, as the focus of the forensic linguistics and indicates the relationship between courtroom language and the interpersonal meaning, which manifests it is feasible to analyze the interpersonal meaning of courtroom language. The third chapter is mainly about the proposal of research questions and the origin of those data. The functional analysis of courtroom language is also in this chapter as well as the discussion about the results of analysis. The fourth chapter is the implication and suggestion made from the studying angle and questions of this paper. The last chapter makes a conclusion of the whole paper, and points out the limitation of this research and the research area in the future.