A Study On Legal Reasoning In Chinese Judgments From The Perspective Of Modality

This study probes into legal reasoning of Chinese judgments through the analysis of modality. It aims to find out the types of modality that facilitate legal reasoning and investigates how modality serves the declaratory and justificatory functions of Chinese judgments.Based on the deductive inference model combined with Peng's classification of modality as the theoretical framework and Chinese judgments as the data, we find out two types of modality in legal reasoning of Chinese judgments: modalisation and modulation. The linguistic means of modalisation are: mood adjunct, comment adjunct and substantive. What realizes modulation is modal operator with high value and that with low value. This research reveals that both modalisation and modulation take up a significant proportion in the use of modality with the former appearing a bit more frequently than the latter. It is also found that mood adjunct is the most favored with comment adjunct the least favored in the linguistic means of modalisation, and that modal operator with high value is preferred over that with low value. Besides, after detailed analysis, we find that modalisation helps to realize the justificatory function through interpreting the law and assessing facts, and that modulation functions to serve the declaratory function by stating the law and identifying duties.This thesis may deepen the understanding of legal reasoning of Chinese judgments. It is also hoped that judges can arrive at judgments more powerfully when they have better knowledge about modality and make proper use of it.