A Narrative Semiotic Analysis Of A Case Report

The paper works on tracing the latest development in the field of forensic linguistics and the application of narrative semiotics in legal context. On the one hand, the author attempts to apply the narrative semiotic method to the analysis of a case report which is so far a virgin soil and deserves the try. On the other hand, the author also analyzes the various theories and seeks whether these various methods can compensate narrative semiotics in analyzing legal discourses. Recent years witness the rapid development of forensic linguistics and the linguistic study of legal discourses, and legal discourses have already caught many scholars' attention. Some of the researchers pay their attention to the rules and regulations that govern people's social actions; others show their great interests in the interactions and conversations on the courtroom and attempt to induce some effective techniques for legal practice. Furthermore, the linguistic study in the legal context has attracted the attention of many linguists and jurists. And their studies in this field can not be separated from the first place but can compensate each other. Greimas' insightful paper The Semiotic Analysis of Legal Discourse kicks off the application of narrative semiotics to the study of legal discourses. Meanwhile, in the field of forensic linguistics, Tiersma and Gibbons have both made great contribution for the development of the field.There are all together four chapters in this thesis, their organization is as follows.Chapter One is an introduction. The research field, the main method adopted in the analysis, the subject chosen to be analyzed, features of the method and the purpose of the thesis are all explained here. The paper is an attempt to analyze the legal discourse and the method adopted here is narrative semiotics, the subject to be analyzed is a well selected case report. The aim of the paper is to reveal the narrative nature of legal discourses and to have a deeply interpretation of the legal language.Chapter Two is literature review. Recent years many scholars in the field of forensic linguistic study have made prominent achievements. Tiersma examines the characters and features of legal language in his work and explored the nature of legal language. He notices the importance of narrative and the method of story telling in the interactions of the courtroom during the study of courtroom discourses. In the end of his study he also discusses the ways to make legal language more intelligible to the common people. Being different from Tiersma, Gibbons explains the relationship between the spoken and written language of the law and recognizes that literacy leads to the difference between legal language and oral language. He also examines many legal documents and finds out that the attempt to arrive a precise expression of meaning has led to a specialist technical legal language. In the other parts of the research Gibbons applies the social semiotic theory to the legal practice and the real interactions in the courtroom. Meanwhile he also puts forward that there are primary reality and secondary reality in the legal process. Being different from the traditional forensic linguistics, Greimas puts forward that narrative is the nature of legal discourse and he describes it as a general form of the articulation of contents. We can consider narrative grammar as a form of the organization of the human imagination that underpins all forms of discourses. Some forensic linguists such as Tiersma and Gibbons also pay attention to legal documents, but they have seen them in a different way which is "linguistic proper" as what Fairclough has put. However, in a broader sense, the two theories are not parallel at all, but have a lot to enrich each other. Both Tiersma and Gibbons have noticed the importance of narrative in legal practice and what Greimas has done is what many forensic linguists have failed in doing. After Greimas, Jackson has successfully applied the narrative semiotics to the study of the legal theory and his achievements are quite fruitful.Chapter Three is an application of the narrative semiotic method to the analysis of a case report. In this part the case report will be analyzed on three semiotic levels put forward by Greimas. At the discursive level, the figurative component,the grammatical features and the enunciative component are examined in detail. At the narrative level, the case report is put into the actantial narrative schema and the canonical narrative schema. At the deep level the values and the axiology of the case report are presented in the form of the semiotic squares. The last part of this chapter is the ways and suggestions to improve narrative semiotics. As many other theories, narrative semiotics also has its theoretical problems and should be improved through the continuous application. It should be noticed that from the beginning Greimas has separated the social context of discourse from his semiotic study. However, discourses should never be divorced from social practice and can not be isolated from the social context. Therefore, in this part the social context of the case report is introduced into the analysis.Chapter Four is a conclusion of the thesis. In this part the author summaries the main content of the study, strengthens the significance of narrative semiotics in the analysis of legal discourses and views the possible trend of development in this field.