A Study On Gender Difference Between Lawyers In Interruption Phenomenon Of American Courtroom Discourse

The field of interruption in conversation analysis has been playing a significant role since the 1970th, noticed by outstanding scholars in many scientific areas such as linguistics, sociology and anthropology. Being an emphasis of forensic linguistics, continuous and frequent interruption phenomenon occurs mostly during the process of cross-examination in courtroom discourse.Based on the phenomenon of interruptions during the process of cross-examination in court, this research has collected and analyzed courtroom languages and conversations in an American TV show, The Good Wife, primarily depicting law and court, in order to answer the following questions:(1) Does gender difference in lawyers of each side (interrupters) cause the difference in interruption phenomenon? (2) Does classification of interruptions appeared in courtroom discourse have connection with gender difference in interrupters? (3) Does the goal relationship and goals of interrupters have relevance to their gender?In the first place, this study has elaborated research about interruption phenomenon from 1975 till now, carried out by scholars at home or abroad, from different perspectives and different methods with different goals, and they also have arrived at different results. In the second place, applying the goal-driven theory, goal analysis and conversation analysis, this research has drawn the following conclusions:(1) The gender difference in interrupters does not affect the phenomenon of interruptions when it comes to cross-examination in trials; (2) The classification of interruptions has nothing to do with the interrupters’gender; (3) The gender difference in interrupters does not affect the goal relationships hidden beneath the phenomenon of interruptions either.This research has double significance both in theory and practice. Pragmatically, it has enriched the application of theories concerning the goal-driven principle, goal analysis and conversation analysis in courtroom languages. Practically, it has indicated that gender difference does not affect the phenomenon of interruption, and in real courtroom trials, the goals of each side, instead of the functions of interruption, have great attachment to the interruption phenomenon, which demonstrates that the goals of each attendees should be placed in the heart of the analysis. Therefore, in real court, the lawyers of each side should adopt the strategy of interruption properly to draw forth more definite facts of the trials.However, this research has an unavoidable problem that the linguistic data all come from the TV series show, which may cause the results unreliable and unconvinced in some way.