A Study Of Transitivity System In Chinese Civil Courtroom Discourse

This thesis attempts to examine the Chinese civil courtroom discourse within the framework of transitivity system in Halliday's systemic functional linguistics, with the goal to explore how participants in Chinese courtroom use language to represent patterns of experience by means of the probe into different types of processes. The present research will address the following questions: (1) What actions and events happen in courtroom? Who participates? (2) How are the types of processes distributed throughout the whole trial, or at different stages of the trial? What types of processes dominate over the others? (3) How the modal of experience is interpreted through the grammatical system of transitivity in Chinese courtroom interaction? (4) How power is exerted by transitivity system?Both a quantitative method and a qualitative method are employed in this research to analyze the data collected and transcribed from two Chinese civil courtroom trials. In quantitative analysis, not only the total number of the types of process of the whole trials but also the number of the types of process at different stages is counted. Statistics show that the percentage on different processes in each case is nearly the same. Relational process plays an essential role in the courtroom trial. Relational process and material process take the priority over the other three. The protruding feature of judge's language is the maximum of verbal process and minimum of mental process. Features of the two opposite parties in the two trials are similar, with the exception of case one, in which the plaintiff's relational process is a little more than his counterpart's, but the defendant's mental process is much more than that of the plaintiff. Judge is the main actor in preparation stage and mediation stage. Moreover, material process is the main process of the judge at these two stages. In investigation stage and debate stage, events and activities associated with the judge are greatly reduced, which are substituted by the opposite two parties. Relational, material and mental process become prominent. Qualitative analysis demonstrates that different types of process are closely associated with the result of the trial. The dominant processes—relational process and material process—can push the speaker closer to the side of the fact. When dealing with evidence, both the legal professionals and the laymen should limit the use of mental process. The over-use of mental process is not beneficial to the final verdict of the case. In this thesis, types of processes are taken as an indicator of asymmetrical power relations between different participants, which is a new contribution to the research into the asymmetrical power, along with patterns of interruption and turn-taking, etc. By means of verbal process and material process, the judge fulfils the control over the other participants in the court. It is the judge that makes the verbal and material processes indicators of power. It is the verbal and material processes that carry the force of the judge's utterance. What should be done in each stage is closely associated with the distribution of the types of process; it governs which process comes most and which process comes least. Material process and relational process are the two major processes in preparation stage and mediation stage. The judge is the main actor at these two stages. However, in the investigation stage and debate stage, with the reduction of the judge's utterances, the two parties become the main actors. Material process, relational process and mental process become prominent at these two stages. Eventually in the last part the author summarizes the whole thesis and points out its limitations.This research is a bridge to connect the two hot issues—functional linguistics and forensic linguistics. It is hoped that it will facilitate both legal professionals and laymen in courtroom trial. This paper acts as a tentative attempt to study transitivity system in Chinese civil courtroom discourse. Limitations exist. It is expected to be broadened and deepened.