Repair In Chinese Courtroom Trials

Trouble is inevitable in the process of various talks and repair, the treatment of trouble in the interactive language use, is the sole method of making the talks smooth without interruption. Like the turn-taking, preference structure, adjacency pair, repair is a part of conversation analysis and has been an important subject.What I focus on in this dissertation is the repair in a certain kind of institutional discourse, courtroom discourse, and it is quite different from the general conversational repair in daily life. At present, the study on repair in institutional discourse is still confined to classroom. Not only does the study on repair in courtroom discourse verify the research achievements and results in the daily conversation but also provides some inspiration to and enriches the general language study. Combining the language phenomenon with social problems, the study has both the linguistic values and practical ones in forensic practice.Some foreign scholars such as Jefferson, Sacks, Jefferson & Schegloff (SJS), and Goodwin etc. have been devoting themselves to comprehensive and deep study since the 1970s. Their emphasis is put on three components of repair. Meanwhile they take interest in the form and function of repair. Some relevant researches about repair extend to the relationship between repair and grammar, repair and Second Language Acquisition (SLA) etc. However, the phenomenon has not attracted enough attention in China until the end of 20th century, and very few studies are done on repair in the learning of English as a second language. The China notable scholars in this field can be Li Yue'e (1996) and Ma Wen (2002).Different scholars at home and abroad define the concept of repair from different angles, and the common core in various definitions relies on one point that repair is the effective means to deal with troubles in speaking, hearing, or understanding and makes the conversation go on smoothly. The definition adopted in my thesis is that repair is a mechanism used to deal with trouble in speaking,hearing or understanding. Whatever can hinder the interaction can be called trouble, like mishearing, misunderstanding, incorrect word selection, inappropriate diction, ambiguous referents, scanty professional knowledge etc. So it is incomplete and partial to look repair as the replacement and correction of linguistic form.The theoretical framework comprises three points. (1) SJS's study on the organization, type and position of repair are the most important theory in my thesis. (2) The anaphora repair is the result of compromise of the conflict between Clarity principle and Economy principle. (3) The features of institutional discourse summarized by Paul Drew and John Heritage are a third aspect of my theoretical framework.By means of CA, the transcriptions of recorded data are given the qualitative analysis and quantification. The following are the results of my study.(1) The four subtypes of the same-turn repair (STR) have the diverse functions. Most of replacing goes to the lexical words choice, which deals with the inappropriateness of meaning. The result of replacing is the exactness and clarity of expressing. Insertion mainly undertakes the conversational functions of emphasis or complement. Recycling mainly serves as a means of delaying the next item, thus allowing the speaker more time to come up with a proper diction. Restarting, the only type among the four that involves restructuring an already uttered segment of discourse, displays the speaker's linguistic competence at the syntactic level.(2) The forms of initiator of the STR vary greatly from the lexical ones to non-lexical ones. The lexical initiators include "Zhege, Nage (这个, 那个)", "E,A,Ai (呃, 啊, 嗳) ","Bushi(不是)","Fanzheng(反正)" etc. The non-lexical ones refer to the sound stretch, pause etc.(3) The preference of self-initiated self-repair in mundane conversation found by SIS does not appear in the institutional discourse of courtroom. The other-initiated self-repair has been found to be predominant in trials. The initiators are the powerful group, which is the judge, prosecutor, lawyer, who initiate the defendant's self-repair.(4) Compared with the initiators in STR, other initiators are more valuable in the practice of forensic activities. The different types of other initiators play different roles in the strategies of inquiring in trials.(5) The different groups have been familiar with cases before they are present in courtroom while the mundane conversation is unpredictable and aimless. The speaker could hardly know what the hearer wants to say in next turn in ordinary conversation. This kind of other repair, however, is common in courtroom. That is to say, the judge inquires the defendant and provides the correct answer when the defendant has difficulties in interacting with the judge.(6) The other-initiations in courtroom show the distinctive feature with ones in ordinary conversation. Most of these initiations are made by the judge, especially in the phase of closing addresses. This kind of initiation is not only the right of the judge endowed by the law but also one part of the compulsory procedure. And the repair is produced by the prosecutor and the defendant or lawyer.(7) The repairs in the respective phases of trials are different in three aspects ---troubles, initiation and the typical organization of repair. In the phase of preparation, the trouble is aroused by the defendant's misunderstanding of legal proper nouns. The initiator of repair is produced by the judge or the defendant. Self-initiated other-repair is the main type of repair. In the phase of investigation and examination, the trouble comes from the conflicting opinion and evidence between the prosecutor and the defendant. The initiation can be made by the prosecutor and the lawyer. The typical repair in this phase is other-initiated self-repair. In the third phase, closing addresses, the trouble is still the result of conflict between the prosecutor and the defendant. But the initiation can only be produced by the judge. Other-initiated other-repair becomes the main type of repair.In the end of the thesis, the values of this study in the forensic practice and linguistic field are summarized.(1) The thesis is the result of the application of forensic theory on repair into the indigenous data. My conclusions verify the predecessors' conclusion and I also...