A Study On Power In Courtroom Discourse

Based on the analysis of five typical trials in Chinese courtrooms, this paper sets out to examine the power relationship in Chinese courtroom discourse. More specifically, this study aims to: (i) discover the critical role of the existing power arrangement and to see how it constrains courtroom discourse; (ii) identify the linguistic mechanisms through which power is realized, exercised, sometimes abused, and occasionally subverted; (iii) see how the linguistic details can simultaneously reflect and reinforce power relationships that exist among courtroom participants.To start with, this thesis reviews previous power studies on institutional discourse, we find that several approaches are typically and usefully applied to the analysis of institutional discourse: sociolinguistics, interactional linguistics, discourse analysis, ethnography of speaking, and conversation analysis. However, the sole use of one approach cannot meet the analytic requirement, so we adopt an integrated approach to the research. When summarizing previous power studies in courtroom discourse, we find that researches have mainly been conducted by western scholars in such areas as lawyer-witness interaction, judge-witness interaction, interpreters in bilingual courtrooms, the speaking styles of witnesses, and comprehension problems of minority defendants. However, few studies have been done on power phenomenon in the Chinese courtroom. The actual situation in Chinese courtrooms is much different from the situation in an Anglo-Saxon court Considering the active involvement of judges and rare appearance of witnesses in Chinese courtrooms, we focus on the interaction between the judge/public prosecutor/lawyer and defendants. We address the judge/public prosecutor/lawyer legal professionals and defendants lay participants according to their different access to legal knowledge.Courtroom discourse, as a typical institutional discourse with power-laden and interactive features, needs to be treated with an integrated approach. The approach we adopt in the present paper brings together the methodological orientation ofconversation analysis with the theoretical richness of critical discourse analysis and interactional theories. Critical Discourse Analysis holds that a power relationship pre-exists talk and influence talk during the process. It tends to see power as already accruing to some participants and this power is determined by their socioeconomic status, gender or ethnic identity. According to interactional theories, courtroom discourse is also characterized by its interaction among courtroom participants. The pre-assigned power relation may be altered during the interaction. Interaction does affect power: (i) power can be gained during courtroom interaction by gaining access to some discursive actions; (ii) power can be negotiated among participants by compliance or resistance. It is the joint efforts of two sides that determine the power relation during interaction; (iii) power can be locally constructed. Participants occupy different turns in talk, which puts them in a relatively powerful or powerless position. Conversation analysis is the specific tool used to conduct the research since it combines a concern with the contextual sensitivity of language use with a focus on talk as a vehicle for social action. The microanalysis of language can better show the power-discourse relationship at macrolevel.The present thesis quantitatively and qualitatively analyzes the power phenomenon in Chinese courtroom discourse. In quantitative analysis, the amount of speech of the different parties, their speaking turns and adjacency pairs initiated by different parties are counted so as to find out which party dominates in the power relationship. Statistics support the conclusion that legal professionals dominate discourse space in the courtroom. In qualitative analysis, turn allocation and question-answer pairs are examined. The institutionality of the courtroom discourse largely determines the power relationship between legal professionals and lay participants because there are pre-allocated turns and even different types of turns for different participants. The mode of orderly turn transition is the representation of pre-existing discourse order. Interruption and overlapping of speech better shows the maintenance and consolidation of this asymmetrical power relationship during interaction. As for the question-answer pairs, we found the ability to ask the questions maintains, strengthens, challenges and even alters the asymmetrical power relationship...