The Analytical Study Of Engagement Resources In Closing Argument Discourses In American Courtroom

Since Martin’s appraisal theory appeared in1990s, it has been granted great attention theoretically and pragmatically. Theoretically, the engagement resource in this theory is the further development of Halliday’s Systemic Functional Linguistics and Discourse Linguistics. Pragmatically, it is broadly applied in a variety of types of discourses, but there are still some restrains. The present study on forensic discourse has been the heated topic in linguistic circle. In the adversarial system, closing arguments are of great importance in a court trial. Both sides of plaintiff and defendant have the opportunity to express their own stances elaborately, fully and freely without any interruption of the other side to strive for the last opportunity to win the lawsuit. Therefore, it is of realistic significance to study how both sides of plaintiff and defendant in the courtroom express their own stances, attitudes and affects by exerting engagement resources, and this is my study focus.The author selects six pieces of famous closing arguments in American history as the study objects. Under the guidance of Martin’s engagement resources in appraisal theory, the present study attempts to make a quantitative and qualitative research on the engagement resources used in the six closing arguments. Through the literature review of the engagement resources and the closing argument, some limitations of the previous studies have been found. Thus, the author puts forward three research questions:firstly, what are the differences and similarities of the engagement resources employed by the both sides in American courtroom? Secondly, what effects do the engagement resources used in the closing arguments by lawyers of both sides have? And how are they achieved? Thirdly, what the language features and regularities do the courtroom closing arguments with engagement resources have?According to the three research questions, the analysis is conducted in three steps:firstly, under the framework of engagement resources, the quantitative study is done to describe the distribution of engagement resources used in the6closing arguments, after which differences and similarities of both sides in using engagement resources can be found through comparison. Secondly, the qualitative study is done to explore the language effects obtained by the engagement resources. Thirdly, through the analysis, language features and regularities of the courtroom closing arguments with engagement resources are concluded. The research finds that both sides in the courtroom have similarities in using engagement resources:they employ many kinds of engagement resources, particularly preferring dialogic contraction resources; both sides use monoglossia to narrate cases and construe the addressees’attitudes and evaluations to their clients. Meanwhile, both sides have differences in using engagement resources:the defense side prefers to use more, engagement resources. Lawyers in the courtroom adjust their language strategies by employing different engagement resources to comply with the audience’s mentality, persuade the jury and the judge to win the case for their clients. The discourse of courtroom closing argument has the characteristics of eloquence, evidence and persuasion which demand lawyers in the courtroom to use engagement resources to express their stances directly or indirectly. In this kind of discourse, dialogic contraction resources are more frequently used because lawyers have to refute the opposite side. By contraction resources, lawyers narrow or even deprive of the opposite side’s dialogic space and achieve the purpose of eloquence and persuasion.