A Study On The Interruption In Chinese Courtroom Discourse

The interruption is one of the important discourse forms in the courtroom discourse. This research intends to further the study on the courtroom interruption by answering the following three questions: 1.What is the fundamental cause of the courtroom interruption, or what brings about the interruption? 2. What is the relationship between power and the courtroom interruption? 3. What is the value of this research in the trial practice?After briefly introducing the previous studies on the interruption and courtroom interruption, this thesis, in line with the theory of Principle of Goal (PG) and Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), with the research method Goal Analysis (GA) and Conversation Analysis (CA), studies the relationship between the conversational goal, power and courtroom interruption by means of genuine Chinese courtroom corpus.Conclusions can be drawn as follows: 1. the fundamental cause of the courtroom interruption is the pursuit of realizing individual goals, namely, pursuit of the goal's realization brings about the interruption; 2. the power in the courtroom, consisting of the institutional power and contextual power, guarantees the courtroom interruption; 3. the goal and power are two indispensable components of the courtroom interruption; 4. proper interruption is necessary in a trial, while some interruptions indeed lack legal and pragmatic foundation, which should be prohibited.This research has its values in both linguistics and trial practice. From the angle of pragmatics and conversation analysis, this thesis reveals the fundamental cause of the courtroom interruption. Besides, this thesis provides a research method and structure for the analysis of other linguistic forms in the courtroom discourse. From the perspective of trial practice, this thesis suggests that proper interruption is necessary in the trial, and all the courtroom participants should take advantage of the interruption in a proper way to realize their goals.