An Adaptation-based Approach To Discourse Markers In The Courtroom Discourse

In the past ten years, the study of discourse markers turned into a growth industry in linguistics, with dozens of articles appearing yearly (Fraser, 1999: 932). However, researches on discourse markers, though rich and fruitful, are far from being homogeneous and complete.We first analyze three pragmatic perspectives on discourse markers, namely, the discourse-coherence-based perspective, the grammatical-pragmatic perspective, and the cognitive-pragmatic perspective. Comparing with them, Verschueren's Adaptation Theory provides a more comprehensive and explanatory approach to studying the dynamic process of language use or linguistic choice from legal, social and cognitive perspectives, which can better illustrate the subtlety and complexity of linguistic choice making in courtroom discourse. Dealing with discourse markers as indicators of metapragmatic awareness, Verschueren's account emphasizes the function of discourse markers in signaling the utterer's mental state in making linguistic choices.It is observed that utterers' linguistic choices of discourse markers in courtroom discourse are based on various elements of adaptation: the legal procedures, the institutional power, the psychological motivations and so on. These factors are what utterers adapt to in the process of achieving their different communicative goals in courtroom interaction. With adaptation to them, discourse markers are chosen by utterers in the courtroom discourse as indicators of interruption, as indicators of reinforcement, as indicators of initiating questions, disagreements or challenges, as indicators of hesitation and consideration, and as indicators of making progress in the story line. Therefore, although these discourse markers carry no propositional content, they are important in portraying an utterer's intentions and they have important pragmatic functions.Thus, this thesis calls on the judicial department and personnel to attach great importance to the use of discourse markers in the courtroom interaction, and gives some suggestions for the treatment of discourse markers in the courtroom records.