A Pragmatic Study On Police Language Interrogation

In recent years, increasing number of linguists have paid much more attention to the study of characteristics and pragmatic functions of language used in a specific profession. The police language, which is used by people who are responsible for social stability and national security, has attracted extensive attention. The present study is an attempt to probe into the interrogation transcripts from a pragmatic perspective. Based on the interrogation transcripts randomly collected in two police stations and one court in the city of Ningbo, Zhejiang Province, we investigate the interrogation transcripts by approaching eight different characters(seriousness, fuzz, procedure, preciseness, veracity, strategy, justness, simplicity) and four basic pragmatic theories (pragmatic presupposition, deixis, passive cooperation).This thesis focuses more on the analysis and synthesis of interrogative language characteristics in the present pragmatic phenomenon researches. Chapter one provides the significance of the study, the organization of the thesis, and the research methods of the thesis. Chapter two is a tentative study on police interrogation and legal English. Chapter three deals with three pragmatic theories. At the end of this chapter, the author concludes that the new characteristics revealed when combined these theories with the police interrogation transcripts. Chapters 4 to 6 provide a comprehensive pragmatic analysis of interrogation transcripts. These three chapters consist of the police language as an essential part of legal language, characteristics of police language in interrogation transcripts, and pragmatic analysis of police language in interrogation transcripts. In last chapter, conclusions are given as well as suggestions, such as what aspects of interrogation language the police should pay attention to in the course of interrogation, and what other things can be done to assist during interrogation. The present study will help linguists to approach the special pragmatic phenomenon in interrogation transcripts. Besides, it can provide a reference for pragmatic researches on legal language.