A Study Of Courtroom Discourse From The Perspective Of Critical Metonymy Analysis

As a way of thinking,metonymies are omnipresent in human being's language,and there is no exception for courtroom discourse.As a flourishing interdisciplinary research field,studies on courtroom discourse increase in recent years.With the development of cognitive linguistics,some scholars have studied courtroom discourse from the cognitive perspective.Nevertheless,few scholars have touched upon metonymies in courtroom discourse.Integrating Critical Discourse Analysis with conceptual metonymy,this thesis constructs the framework of Critical Metonymy Analysis to analyze metonymies in courtroom discourse.More specifically,metonymies in courtroom discourse are interpreted from three steps:(1)metonymy identification:identifying metonymies in courtroom discourse;(2)metonymy explanation:on the basis of'context,explaining metonymies in detail;more specifically,analyzing the motive in metonymies and exploring the ideology of courtroom;(3)metonymy evaluation:evaluating metonymies in the courtroom discourse comprehensively to judge whether they are used properly or not.Five videos of criminal cases in the Intermediate People's Courts on website(http://tingshen.court.gov.cn)are chosen as the linguistic data,and are transcribed into textual versions(about 148,000 characters).On the basis of the quantitative study and qualitative study of the linguistic data,the research aims at answering three questions:(1)What types of metonymy are there in courtroom discourse?(2)What's the cognitive mechanism of metonymy in courtroom discourse?(3)How to evaluate the metonymy in courtroom discourse?The results of the research are shown as follows:(1)according to the characteristics of courtroom discourse,metonymies in courtroom discourse fall into three categories:metonymies in legislative discourse,metonymies in procedural discourse and metonymies in substantive discourse,and each type of metonymies subsumes referential metonymy,predicational metonymy and illocutionary metonymy.(2)addressers use metonymies in courtroom for various motives.Ideologies and power relations in courtroom are also reflected in the metonymy.First,characteristics of power relations in courtroom are shown as follows:power relations in courtroom are asymmetrical and hierarchical;the inherent nature of court determines subjects'use of metonymies;metonymies may strengthen the hierarchical power relations of subjects.Though legal professionals possess greater power than non-legal professionals,they do not wield their power at will,but within the limitation of law regulations,which is the reflection of democracy of the Chinese Court.What's more,there are two kinds of relationships between the subjects in courtroom,that is,"opposition" and "affinity".More specifically,the relationship between litigants and their lawyers is close;whereas defendants and plaintiffs as well as public prosecutors and defendants are opposite.(3)Most metonymies in courtroom discourse meet the criteria of metonymy evaluation.Theoretically,the study enriches the theoretical framework of Critical Metonymy Analysis and demonstrates its feasibility and necessity in discourse analysis.At the same time,it reflects metonymies in courtroom discourse in a relatively comprehensive way and offers a new angle for the courtroom discourse studies.For legal practice,this study improves the normative use of metonymy of legal professionals in courtroom discourse.In addition,it provides some reference for the improvement of defense ability of defenders as well as self-defense ability of non-legal professionals.