Conceptual Metaphors In Litigation

Due to the authority and preciseness inherent in the law itself,it is generally believed that legal practitioners should uphold the principle of objectivity so as to avoid using metaphors in legal field.Historically,a vast majority of jurists hold the same idea,believing that it is metaphor that undermines law's authority and fetters its thought.Nevertheless,a wealth of studies show that metaphor is prevalent in legal language,such as company domicile,pierce the corporate veil,legal loophole,trade barriers,money laundering,underworld and so on.That is to say,legal metaphors are abundant in legal discourse that pursues objectivity,equity,and accuracy.In recent years,legal metaphor has attracted an increasing attention of scholars both at home and abroad.However,most scholars are inclined to explore the positive role that metaphor plays in law through legal discourse,while few scholars choose to study legal metaphor from films and televisions concerning the law in a critical manner.Based on this,the thesis tries to take the Conceptual Metaphor Theory as the framework to explore the categories and cognitive mechanism of conceptual metaphors in Silk--a British TV series concerning criminal litigation,by employing qualitative analysis and quantitative analysis as well.The data collected come from all the eighteen episodes in Silk,ranging from Season One to Season Three.After collecting,categorizing,and analyzing the data,the thesis finds that:(1)Legal world,especially litigation process,is heavily laden with metaphors.There are structural metaphor,orientational metaphor and ontological metaphor in Silk,of which structural metaphor includes LITIGATION IS WAR,LITIGATION IS A SPORTS GAME,LITIGATION IS A JOURNEY,COURTROOM IS A STAGE;orientational metaphor includes GOOD IS UP,BAD IS DOWN,HIGH STATUS IS UP,LOW STATUS IS DOWN;and ontological metaphor includes CHARGE IS AN ENTITY,LAW IS A PERSON,EVIDENCE IS A PERSON,LEGAL SYSTEM IS A PERSON,CASE IS A PERSON,CHARGE IS A PERSON,and ARGUMENT IS A PERSON.Of all the structural metaphors,it is war metaphor that occurs most frequently,which,to a certain extent,reveals the adversary system in common law countries.(2)The British culture is the main experiential motivation behind war metaphors.For instance,its adversary system renders relatively strong war colors in its legal concepts.(3)Despite the fact that legal metaphor can be conducive to promoting people's understanding of the law,it is worth noting that indiscriminate and uncritical acceptance of metaphors in legal field,for example,the overuse of war metaphor,may bring about negative effects.The implications of the thesis are as follows: firstly,to provide a reference for the study of related films and televisions concerning law in the future,and to offer a more adequate corpus for the study of related legal metaphors from the perspective of cognitive metaphor;secondly,the analysis of metaphors in litigation can provide disparate understanding perspectives for legal practitioners,especially lawyers,thus enabling them to have a dialectical view of legal metaphors and to adopt metaphors reasonably in court debate to convince the other party.In addition,the study can,to some extent,promote legal English teaching in China.For instance,the introduction of conceptual metaphor may not only enhance the recollection of learning legal English lexicons,but also render a better understanding of lawyers' way of thinking in some legal cases.Moreover,students can understand that the initial intention and ultimate goal of the law lie not in punishing offenders,but in safeguarding social order and social justice through learning war metaphors.Finally,it is conducive to strengthening ordinary citizens' understanding of the law,and to better popularizing relevant legal knowledge.