A Study On Narrative Discourse Game In Court-related Mediation

Court-related mediation is such an activity in which disputing parties negotiate with each other and resolve contradictions in a voluntary and equal way under the guidance of judges. Nowadays,under the circumstance of "Grand Mediation",courtroom mediation is in an important position in the mechanism of solving dispute.Different narrative constructs distinct fact texts. The process of constructing facts through narrative discourse as well as responding to the other party 's narrative discourse through strategic choice is also the process of discourse games which is full of strategies and goals. During the mediation, disputing parties provide their respective story versions concerning the same event. There may be two opposite narrative versions with regard to the same event. And it is the mediator's duty to take both story versions into consideration and integrate them into one version. In this sense, court-related mediation centers on narrative and the ubiquity of narrative discourse can be found in court-related mediation. Therefore, it is vital for us to attach great importance to and conduct researches on narrative discourse in court-related mediation.In this thesis, we base our studies on authentic data from mediation practice in China and put narrative discourse the object of our study. With the framework of narrative discourse game under the Principle of Goal Direction, we analyze the characteristics of the participants' narrative discourse; explain how narrative discourse game is carried out through goal adopting, goal negotiating, goal refusing, goal laying aside and goal ignoring under different goal relations and make a conclusion concerning the participants' narrative discourse strategies.In regard to the mediator identity of judges, their narrative discourse is professional,procedural and persuasive; while the disputants' narrative discourse is full of interaction,confrontation and goals. During different stages of the mediation,the participants carry out narrative discourse games under different goal relations. When parties' goals are consistent, one party 's narrative discourse goals are adopted or negotiated by the other party. Whereas under goal conflicting relation,one party's goals tend to be ignored,laid aside or refused by the opposite side. And when participants' goals are neutral, basically,games take on the form of cooperation and goals are inclined to be adopted, negotiated or laid aside by the other party. Meanwhile, we find that the participants adopt different narrative discourse strategies to serve their respective goals. Judges tend to highlight shared knowledge and beliefs and arouse empathetic feelings of the disputants so as to persuade them to reach agreement. And the disputants will adopt repetition and selecting facts to lead the mediation to move towards their own benefits.By establishing the framework of narrative discourse game under the Principle of Goal Direction, we analyze and explain mediation narrative discourse from two perspectives--static perspective and dynamic perspective,hoping to get a better understanding of the characteristics of mediation narrative discourse, the law of narrative discourse games as well as narrative discourse strategies so as to promote the positive role mediation plays in resolving dispute and achieving social harmony.