Analysis Of The Topic Flow In Testimony Examination

This thesis elaborates on the phenomenon of topic flow in goal-conflicting testimony examinations on the basis of the model of goal-conflicting courtroom interaction and the model of information processing of legal discourse.Topic-flow analysis consists of two parts: topic analysis and response analysis. Topics can be categorized into three types: substantive topic, corollary topic and transitional topic which are essentially courtroom questions (Kuppevelt, 1995). Thus, the question types proposed by Liao Meizhen are adopted to facilitate the present study. Responses can be categorized into nine types, of which six are of particular interest to this study. Then, topics and responses in courtroom testimony examinations are thereupon described and illustrated with examples from both criminal and civil cases.Another objective of the study is to identify the topic flow patterns in testimony examinations. By taking a data-driven approach, some carefully collected courtroom data are described, with attention paid to how the topics and responses are presented and how they influence each other under the guidance of their respective goals. After some painstaking observation, three general patterns of topic flow are found to exist in the collection of data, including direct topic-flow pattern, deep-going topic-flow pattern, which is further divided into vertical deep-going and horizontal deep-going patterns, and compound topic-flow pattern.The research shows that well-formed topic-flow patterns play a very important role in the realization of litigation goal. The dexterous arrangement and selection of topics, information knots and question forms may contribute to the elicitation of desired information in goal-conflicting testimony examinations.The present study may contribute to the topic flow analysis in particular and information structure in general of legal discourse. It is hoped that the investigation of topic flow in goal-conflicting testimony examinations may assist questioners in eliciting desired information by linguistic means at large.