| This thesis reports on a conversation analysis of repair strategies in talk-in-interaction conducted in Chinese and American courts, specifically focusing on prosecutors/lawyers-defendants/witnesses interaction. The aim of the study is to describe the routine practices of conversational repair with repair organization at the core, and to demonstrate how repair functions in the legal context of courtroom.Following the model proposed by Schegloff, Jefferson and Sacks for analysis of conversational repair, we identify three types of repair in the Chinese and English data. They are: self-initiated self-repair, other-initiated self-repair, and other-initiated other-repair. Detailed analysis suggests that each type of repair has its distinct, regular organizational features in terms of the positions of repair initiators, the initiating techniques and the trajectories from repair initiation to repair outcome. It is also found that repair organization in Chinese courts share great similarities with that in American courts in spite of their differences in the language and the legal system.Importantly, the research shows that parties at trial constantly adopt repair strategies to achieve their respective communicative goals. Repair can be used to deal with a variety of problems concerning speaking, hearing, and understanding in courtroom interaction, which enables a continuation of smooth communication.The present study may add to the existing body of work on repair and may help to gain deeper insight into the nature of courtroom interaction. It is hoped that the investigation into the repair operation in the courtroom can be useful in throwing light on the intricacies of strategies in courtroom discourse at large. |
