Pragmatic Functions Of Courtroom Conflict Discourse In Boston Legal

Conflict discourse is prevalent in verbal communication,such as conversation.Courtroom discourse belongs to institutional conflict discourse.At present,most scholars pay much attention to politeness utterances.Some have tended to focus on the negative effects of conflict discourse,with positive pragmatic functions being rarely studied,among which more are studied under the theory of Face-saving Theory and Politeness Principle.This thesis chooses the courtroom conflict discourse from the first two sessions of the American legal drama Boston Legal as the data and analyzes the negative and positive pragmatic functions from the perspective of Verschueren's(1999)Linguistic Adaptation Theory.The study finds that:(1)Due to the particularity of courtroom discourse,communicators in court use bold on record impoliteness,positive impoliteness,negative impoliteness,sarcasm or mock politeness and withhold politeness to achieve courtroom purposes,thus causing negative pragmatic functions of threatening the communicators' face and public identities and affecting social harmony;(2)At the same time courtroom conflict discourse also has positive pragmatic functions.Courtroom conflict discourse is produced when different courtroom subjects aim to realize their communicative purposes and then make adaptation to the changing communicative context,to the language structural objects,to the dynamic courtroom process and to the consciousness degree in the process of courtroom discourse.On the one hand,courtroom participants use conflict discourse to construct their institutional power and identities.On the other hand,the use of it helps to promote interpersonal harmony.Furthermore,the intense debate is conducive to the maintenance of judicial justice and the improvement of the courtroom efficiency,promoting the construction of a harmonious court,a harmonious society,and the society of the rule of law.The research results help people to view courtroom conflict discourse rationally,to understand the operation of law in the court,and to promote the law reform.Therefore,it has certain social significance and to a certain extent,it also enriches the adaptation study on courtroom discourse.