Language In Courtroom

As the law plays a more and more significant role in modern human society, Forensic Language, as a special genre of human language, is of greater and greater importance in our daily lives. Differing from the"ordinary"language we use in our daily lives, forensic language is a kind of legal carrier with strong sense of authority and power of restriction. It might be of the greatest significance to the participants in legal processes, for its use will greatly influence the interests of all parties involved. This significant characteristic, together with other elements, leads to the intensive study of forensic language in recent years, thus formed the brand new division of linguistics– Forensic Linguistics (or Legal Linguistics, Forensics). This paper is to cast a brief peep into one of the most important parts in the study of forensic linguistics, language in courtroom, with the intention to reveal the characteristics of language use of the speakers of different roles in a courtroom, and try to answer the questions such as, how does language use in courts affect the substantial justice, what are the problems facing forensic language, as well as offer some possible solutions.The first chapter is a brief introduction to the study of Forensic Linguistics. In the second and third chapters, the author takes a deep look at the language use in courtroom by analyzing the language characteristics of judges, witnesses and lawyers, and reaches a conclusion that the inequality of language use in courtroom is rooted in the unequal power and knowledge of law or legal settings shared by different participants, which may further influence the justice of law. The fourth chapter dedicates to the analysis of the problems caused by the language use and some possible solutions. The fifth chapter is a brief summary of the whole paper.