A Conversation Analysis Of Prosecutors’ Questions In Chinese Courtroom

The current literature on questioning as a type of forensic language focuses on the typologies and functions of questions. Two limitations of the previous questioning research in forensic discourse are among some scholars’special concerns:(1) it has mostly been studied as single utterances (i.e. questions), rather than as sequences of talk;(2) it has been approached mainly from a legal or sociolinguistic perspective and has never been investigated from a communicative perspective (Chang2004:706). As an empirical examination of the conversational functions of prosecutors’questioning in courtroom discourse, the present research takes a combined approach of conversation analysis (CA) and pragmatics to the relevant data collected by the author. To be more specific, the research questions raised for the present research work are as follows:1. What are the conversational functions of prosecutors’questioning in courtroom?2. How do prosecutors design their questioning to accomplish the targeted functions?3. What can be the factors contributing to the prosecutors’manipulation of the possible responses from the respondents to their questioning?The major findings of this paper are summarized as follows:1. The three main conversational functions under discussion are eliciting narratives, eliciting information and requiring confirmation.2. The prosecutors typically realize their questioning of eliciting narratives with yes/no questions and wh-questions; the one of eliciting information using wh-questions with one-word answer; and the one of requiring confirmation with yes/no questions, alternative questions and B event.3. The prosecutors’awareness of respondents’ cooperation will determine their manipulation of responses. In contrast with what they can do with the witnesses, the prosecutors tend to use various types of questions and strategies when interrogating defendants, which can be accounted with Grice’s Cooperative Principle (1975).