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A Genre-based Analysis Of The Counsel's Statements Of Defence In Chinese Criminal Trial

Posted on:2005-07-11Degree:MasterType:Thesis
Country:ChinaCandidate:L Q DaiFull Text:PDF
GTID:2156360122981307Subject:Foreign Linguistics and Applied Linguistics
Abstract/Summary:PDF Full Text Request
The present study undertakes an examination of the counsel's statements of defence in Chinese criminal trial with the help of linguistic theories and legal knowledge. This thesis takes up a corpus analysis based on the genre approach. It aims to work out the generic structure and the lexical-grammatical strategies employed by the counsel in the statements of defence and then to account for their choices of the moves and strategies.Within the theoretical framework of genre analysis and systemic functional theory, the present study first investigates the statements of defence as a specific persuasive genre in accordance with the definition of genre given by Swales and Sant's "persuasive 4-mula". To produce the move structure of the statements of defence, we then adopt an integrated theory, which comes mostly from Hasan's GSP theory and Swales' move-step model. Next the present study tries to identify the lexical and syntactical strategies employed by the counsel in certain particular moves of the statements of defence. Further on, the study attempts to account for the generic structure and the strategy choices made by the counsel. Attempting to give possible explanations for the choices, we apply the privileged criterion of communicative purpose in genre and the concepts of field, tenor, and mode from three contextual dimensions in systemic functional theory to the supplement of the GSP theory. Tentative as it is, the study proves to be a full exploration of the genre of statements of defence from its macrostructure to its microstructure.Within the implications from genre theory in this study, we propose a genre-based approach both to teaching and learning of statement defence writing. It is also hoped that, at least to some extent, the study may shed some light on the analysis of Chinese data in legal practice.
Keywords/Search Tags:genre, genre analysis, move, register, generic structure potential (GSP), statements of defence
PDF Full Text Request
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