A Study Of Grammatical Metaphor As A Pragmatic Strategy In Chinese Courtroom Discourse

According to Halliday (2000:343), there may be "variations in the expression of a given meaning" that are in some respect’transferred’or ’metaphorical’. That is, one can express meaning of a given semantic configuration in incongruent form to present more verbal functions. This kind of linguistic phenomenon exists extensively in various kinds of text and discourse types, among which the courtroom discourse is a representative kind. It is an institutional and situated discourse that is task-based and goal-directed. Participants in court will employ a series of linguistic devices and conversational strategies to express their own intentions and achieve communicative goals. This thesis intends to explore applications of grammatical metaphors in Chinese courtroom discourse with Halliday’s system of grammatical metaphors, and go further into functions of these metaphors as a pragmatic strategy in expressing interpersonal meanings and power relationships in court.The previous studies of courtroom discourse analysis are reviewed in the first place in this thesis. Almost all the forensic linguists and pragmatists are devoted to their researches from perspectives of rhetoric approach, socio-linguistic studies, discourse analysis as well as pragmatic studies. Then, the present studies of grammatical metaphors and pragmatic strategies are summarized. In terms of theoretical framework of this thesis, the author pays attention to Halliday’s original system of grammatical metaphors with only ideational and interpersonal metaphors included. The extension and reclassification of this system are also involved. In addition, Prof. Liao Meizhen’s goal-direction principle is described in detail in this part. Not only understandings of this principle, but the goal relations, goal analysis model and some other interpretations are concerned. During the process of analyzing, the author transcribes ten criminal and civil cases broadcasted in programs of 《庭审现场》 and 《现在开庭》 for about fifty thousand Chinese characters. Then, the author applies both descriptive and interpretative analysis to this thesis to present not only grammatical metaphors manifested in Chinese courtroom discourse, but also the way they function as a pragmatic strategy to help participants in court to achieve their own communicative goals and express interpersonal meanings. After analyzing the target courtroom discourses, some conclusions can be summed up. The grammatical metaphors not only exist in English, but pervade in various Chinese discourses as well, especially the institutional discourse as a representative type. In addition, this kind of metaphors can be considered as a goal-attainment device used in interactions. At the same time, through analysis of Chinese courtroom discourse, the author found that the inquisitorial model in Chinese courts is a bit different from that in foreign courts. The power relations of legal professionals and defendants are not equivalent and there are almost no fierce debates in Chinese courts.Although the author analyzed and interpreted the target discourses as detailed as possible, there is still a long way to go in this field of research. In the future, scholars can pay more attention to the explanation of grammatical metaphor theory when employed to analyze Chinese discourse. The differences between Chinese and English should be pointed out further. The textual metaphor should be replenished. Also more linguistic data should be collected before analyzing so that they are more comprehensive and representative.