A Study Of The Interpersonal Meaning In Chinese Criminal Courtroom Trial Interaction

Over the decades, research on interpersonal meaning has attracted more and more attention in that it is a major property in communication, and adopted in analyzing discourses of various areas including law discourse. Criminal law has been the main focus of much of the work on language and the law, particularly court proceedings (Gibbons, 2002: 2). Researches on interpersonal meaning in courtroom interaction help us to have better understanding on how natural language is structured, attitudes are exchanged, and intentions are performed through interaction in such institutional discourse.The present study starts as an attempt to examine the interpersonal meaning in Chinese criminal trial interaction within the framework of Hallidayan systemic functional linguistics and the speech act theory of pragmatics, and explore the nature and realization of interpersonal meaning and the functions it may perform. Absorbing the previous researching merits of functionalists, the writer conducted a quantitative and qualitative research by analyzing transcript data of two criminal courtroom trials, aiming at examining the construction of relationships through linguistic resources among participants in legal context and the way interpersonal meanings exchanged among different roles or parties in a trial interaction, and also demonstrating how those interpersonal cues such as mood, temporality, polarity and modality, and metaphors of modality can take effect in constructing and influencing interpersonal meanings as they are selected in the system.The quantitative study has been carried out on the aspects of speech function, temporality, polarity and modality, and metaphors of modality. Based on the research findings, we may find that the interpersonal meaning in the courtroom trial is based on multi-layer frame relations with each role having conventional status and harboring their own purpose, which is a typical feature of an institutional discourse. Consequently, taking the speech role and speech context into consideration, a subdivision of the speech function based on the traditional mood type and speech function shows that interpersonal exchange not only expresses speaker's attitude, but also serves as three main kinds ofperformative function: declaration, directive, and assertive, according to different roles and definite rules in the courtroom. Thus, a statement mood may be either a declaration or an assertive, or even a directive if uttered with a rising tone. And accordingly, the study on modality reveals that the modal values assigned to modal elements especially deontic modals associate with the degrees of strength of illocutionary force in terms of addresser's entitlement and the force assigned to the addressee in such a spoken law discourse. As for the source of speaker's responsibility, the speakers try to reinforce or mitigate their opinion to claim different degrees of certainty as to be more convincing in the trial. On one hand, subjectivity are made prominent in assessments through the use of modal elements like adjectives or adverbs as hedges in intensifying speaker's attitude or inner state;and on the other, temporal operators such as present perfect and metaphors of modality are carefully chosen by different participants out of their need or want to conceal or reveal the source of the proposition.This study is significant in that instead of over-emphasizing that interpersonal meaning is a mental phenomenon involving speaker's attitudes, it is regarded as more of an interactive phenomenon associating with the speech context and participants' roles. Discourse is constructed to realize semantic and pragmatic function, and speakers need to interact with others and even impact upon the external world. Thus combining systemic functional linguistics with speech act theory gives a full picture of the interpersonal function in specific context. What's more, by avoiding simplicity in examining interpersonal meaning only from one or two aspects of a written discourse, this study devotes attention to general aspects of interpersonal meaning of a spoken law discourse, and attempts to make clear the complex relations in terms of the purpose, role and identity of the speakers in the interaction. In addition, the study is about Chinese courtroom and carried out on Chinese discourse. After all, Chinese judicial system is taking reform and undergoing development, it is necessary to depict the current situation of Chinese courtroom trial through linguistic approach which functions as the fundamental and common unit of trial system.