A Study On Linguistic Features And Pragmatic Functions Of Reported Speech In Chinese Criminal Courtroom Discourse

Legal language is of great importance in incarnating the legal will and fulfilling andsustaining the social fairness and justice.In a broad sense,it includes the written language concerning the legislation and the spoken language of judicial practice.As a crucial branch of legal language study,courtroom discourse,which presents the dynamic language interactions,is unique both in linguistic features and pragmatic functions.Various linguistic strategies have been adopted by participants in the trial to realize their communicative purposes,and reported speech is one of the strategies employed by different parties in courtroom discourse.This dissertation is dedicated to exploring the linguistic features and pragmatic functions of reported speech used in courtroom discourse by means of both quantitative and qualitative methods.The present research is done based on the Linguistic Adaptation theory proposed by Jef.Verschueren and the Principle of Goal Direction by Liao Meizhen.They are combined to provide a more applicable framework for further analysis of linguistic features and pragmatic functions of courtroom discourse.Concretely speaking,the research is intended to investigate how reported speech is used in the trial,what features are showed when language users in the court make linguistic choices in the selection of reported voices,construction of reported messages and expression of reporting attitudes with the goal of achieving their communicative purposes,and what pragmatic functions are fulfilled in the trial by making different linguistic choices in reported speech.In order to answer these questions,20 Chinese criminal cases are selected as the data,from which 575 utterances of reported speech are found.Through the analysis,it has been found out that,first,reported speech is widely used in courtroom discourse as a whole,and it is most frequently used in court investigation,court debate and far less frequently used in other sections like opening,final statement and judgment.Second,the reported speech in courtroom discourse is of great uniqueness in linguistic features.It shows that,to make adaptations to the social,physical and mental worlds of the communicative context respectively,reported speech is of variety in reported voices,facticity in reported messages and goal-orientation in reporting attitudes.Third,according to Speech Act theory,uttering is actually performing,therefore,the reported speech used in courtroom discourse has fulfilled certain pragmatic functions.In terms of adaptation made tothe social world,reported speech works as a linguistic strategy to help participants with higher social status and power,such as judges,public prosecutors and defense lawyers verify the information,transit the topics and legally support the arguments,and to assist defendants to make more persuasive confessions.As to making adaptation to the physical world,reported speech fulfills the recontextualization function.By virtue of the dialogism and narrative nature of reported speech,and considering the transfer of contexts from where the utterances are originally uttered to where they are actually reported,it is assumed that reported speech used in courtroom discourse plays a crucial role in describing the crime process.Besides,it has the interpersonal function when reported speech is interpreted from the perspective of adapting to the mental world of the language users in the communicative context.In this regard,participants use reported speech in the trial to express attitudes,mold personal images and shirk responsibility,trying to affect others' opinions and judgments.The research values of the present study lies in that,theoretically,it manifests the feasibility and practicality of the analytical framework in current research which combines the Linguistic Adaptation Theory with the Principle of Goal Direction,and it provides some references to further studies.Practically,based on the major findings,some suggestions are proposed for judicial practice.For example,witnesses should be encouraged to appear in the court so that the use of reported speech voiced from them can be reduced,the quotations of law articles are supposed to be reported more in order to enhance legal awareness.