Hedges In English And Chinese Lawyer’s Court Arguments

A qualitative and descriptive research method has been adopted by the present study,aiming to seek solutions to these two questions:1) what are the linguistic realizations ofhedges in the lawyer’s arguments and how to classify them in a proper way;2) whatpragmatic effects these hedges present in the process of court argumentation.Based on a review of literatures relevant to hedges and courtroom speech, this thesisbuilds up its analytical framework, which is a combination of Hyland’s classification modewith Prince et al’s classification method. Considering the specific context in the present study,hedges in the lawyer’s arguments have been categorized into content-oriented hedges andhearer-oriented hedges. In compliance with the discrepancy lying in its aims and functions,content-oriented hedges can be divided into accuracy-oriented hedges and speaker-orientedhedges, and the former has been further subdivided into attribution hedges and reliabilityhedges. For the purposes of the present study, Prince et al’s approximators are incorporatedinto attribution hedges, and shields are incorporated into speaker-oriented hedges.Besides, the present study tries to interpret the subtle correlation between hedges andmultiple interactional theories, including the cooperative principle, the politeness principleand the face theory, and explore the underlying reasons why lawyers tent to use hedges in theprocess of court argumentation from a linguistic perspective.Subject to the established analytical framework and theoretical foundation, withadequate data both from English and Chinese lawyer’s arguments, this thesis has exemplifiesand summarized the pragmatic functions of hedges. The use of accuracy-oriented hedges aimsto achieve accuracy and precision and enhance the lawyer’s standpoint of being objective andprofessional; speaker-oriented hedges mark that the lawyers are not fully committed to theirstatements; and hearer-oriented hedges are for appealing to the hearers, thereby gaining moresupport for the lawyers and their clients.