Linguistic Strategies Of Negotiation In Chinese Criminal Lawyers' Statements

This thesis aims at exploring linguistic strategies employed by Chinese criminal lawyers for negotiation embodied in their defense statements under the framework of Engagement of Appraisal System. It studies how criminal lawyers utilize linguistic resources to negotiate with the other participants in criminal trials and seek solidarity between those participants in order to realize the eventual aim of proving innocence or pleading for mitigation of penalty for the defendants.The author of this thesis regards the defending activities of criminal lawyers as negotiations with both the judge and the prosecution aiming at obtaining the judge's agreement on the reasoning of defense towards the case and refuting the charge raised by the prosecution respectively.In Appraisal Theory, Engagement is concerned with a series of language resources which are used by people in negotiating their attitudes with others. By acknowledging or ignoring different external voices which are involved in or challenged by the text produced by the author, the author is trying to find interpersonal space for his stance among diversified voices. The resources of Engagement can be divided into two categories: "dialogic expansion" and "dialogic contraction" with the former including "entertain" and "acknowledge" and the latter including "disclaim" and "proclaim". These categories can be realized in various ways lexico-grammatically. The linguistic strategies for negotiation adopted by criminal lawyers in their defense statements are the embodiment of those Engagement resources.To explore and sum up the specific linguistic strategies for negotiation in criminal lawyers' defense statements will facilitate the understanding of the real intentions and the emphases of defense lawyers in defending the defendants and provide some helpful linguistic reference for defense statements or other legal documents drafting in the future.