Discourse Semantic Analysis Of Chinese Civil Complaint

Civil complaint is a kind of legal documents with which citizen, artificial person, or other organizations initiate civil proceedings towards the People's Court because their civil rights and interests suffer from trespass or because there is a civil controversy between the plaintiff and the defendant. Civil complaint ought to be made on the basis of facts and law and be used in accordance with legal procedure. The purpose of civil complaint is to make the judge believe that the plaintiff's legal rights and interests suffer from trespass and to make favorable decisions in the court trial to maintain fair and square of the society. In judicial practice, a successful civil complaint plays a great role in making the judge make favorable decisions in the court trial. However, the discourse semantic study of civil complaint has seldom been explored both at home and abroad. This thesis is inclined to make a tentative study on civil complaint from discourse semantic perspective.This thesis tries to study how discourse semantic resources distribute in Chinese civil complaint, to explore the reasons why such discourse semantic choices are made and to discover the unequal relationships between the plaintiff and the defendant realized in civil complaint. Besides, the study on civil complaint from linguistic perspective is favorable to improve the production quality of civil complaint.This thesis comprises five chapters. Chapter one introduces the rationale, the objectives, the approach of the research, data collection and the organization of the thesis. Chapter two reviews the discourse semantic theory, the study on legal language, and the study on civil complaint at home and abroad. Chapter three introduces the framework of this thesis—Martin and Rose's (2003) discourse semantic theory in details. And the important roles of genre and register in explaining the discourse semantic choices are also discussed. Chapter four makes analysis of Chinese civil complaint from the five systems to study the semantic choices in civil complaint and makes clear the reasons for such choices. The choices are greatly influenced by the communicative goal of civil complaint and its contextual variables. Through analysis, it is discovered that the plaintiff and the defendant in civil complaint are not in equal relationship. First of all, the plaintiff has more saying power in civil complaint. The other one is that the plaintiff and the defendant are in unequal relationship in the process of the civil conflict. The defendant's behaviors are always active and aggressive while the plaintiff's behaviors are usually passive. Chapter five concludes this thesis, summarizes the major findings and points out the limitations and suggestions for further study.Through analysis, it is discovered that Attitude foregrounds Judgement of the litigants'behaviors, especially the defendant's moral judgement to describe how the civil conflict happens. Various voices involved are of help to represent the objectivity of civil complaint and to prove the plaintiff's litigation is on the basis of facts and law. Analysis of the Attitude resources and Ideation resources function to make clear the relationship of the plaintiff and the defendant as well as their relevant responsibilities. Civil complaint always takes advantage of conjunctions to show its logicality and coherence to enhance the credibility of the plaintiff's arguments. The litigants are tracked via repetition of their litigation roles once they are introduced. Identification resources make civil complaint formal and precise. Identification analysis is in favor of tracking the relationship of the two parties and their relevant responsibilities. And it also makes civil complaint objective and precise. The combination of hierarchical structure and serial expansion strategies not only makes civil complaint logical and hierarchical, but also makes the judge clear about the whole process of the conflict. All these resources work together to make a successful civil complaint. And these semantic choices are greatly influenced by the communicative objective of civil complaint and its register variables.Through analysis, it is also discovered that the relationship between the plaintiff and the defendant in civil complaint is not equal. First of all, the plaintiff has more say in civil complaint. As the indictor, the plaintiff certainly will make favorable statements and make the defendant in an inferior position. The other one is that the plaintiff and the defendant are in unequal relationship in the process of civil conflict. The defendant's behaviors are always active and aggressive while the plaintiff's behaviors are usually passive. Actually, the two unequal relationships are related. The reason why the plaintiff initiates litigation is that he suffers from unequal treatment in the process of a conflict. Thus the plaintiff takes advantage of his advantageous position in civil complaint to recuperate his losses and to strive for a new impartiality and equality.Analysis of Chinese civil complaint may be of help for the lawyers to make successful and effective civil complaints. Such analysis may attract language learners'interests towards legal language so as to make linguistic study be helpful for other subjects.There are rich opportunities for the further study of civil complaint. The author will collect Chinese civil complaint as much as possible to make further study via the combination of quantitative approach and qualitative approach. And the author will try to collect Anglo-American civil complaint to make contrast study.