A Study Of Vagueness In Chinese Courtroom Discourse

The thesis, based on a corpus of data transcribed by the author of two naturally occurring courtroom trials, is devoted to analysis of vagueness in Chinese courtroom discourse within the theoretic framework of Prof. Liao Meizhen's Principle of Goal Direction together with Grice's Cooperative Principle. The aim of the study is to explore the relation of vagueness to goal(s) and to demonstrate how vagueness functions in Chinese courtroom discourse.Being both descriptive and interpretive in nature, the thesis first investigates how vagueness is manifested and interpreted in a detailed way in the data. Then the interpersonal meanings in Chinese courtroom discourse are identified in terms of vagueness. Finally, the author focuses on the functions that vagueness performs in Chinese courtroom.Detailed analysis suggests that the Principle of Goal Direction works better than the Cooperative Principle in accounting for vagueness in courtroom discourse. Goal(s) constraints and determines the different ways in which vagueness is manifested and interpreted. Vagueness adopted for certain goal(s) reveals the inequality between the participants in courtroom.It is hoped that the present study may have important implications for the study on vagueness as well as for the Chinese juridical system.