A Pragmatic Study Of Hedges In Courtroom Trials

Vagueness is the inherent attribute of human language and the use of hedges can be seen everywhere in daily communication. The proper use of hedges can help speakers to express themselves more precisely and politely. At present, there are studies of hedges in almost all fields, including academic discourse, classroom discourse, and political speeches. But only few scholars have probed into hedges in courtroom trials. In spite of fewer studies, the exploration of hedges in courtroom trials is of significance because it can help the participants involved in trials to better understand the pragmatic functions of hedges and lawyers and witnesses can employ hedges more accurately as well.In the present study, the corpus and data are mainly taken from the testimonies and arguments in the sitcom Justice and the movie The Philadelphia Story. The thesis is an attempt to apply the classification of hedges proposed by E. F. Prince et al (1980) to analyze the distribution and functions from the pragmatic perspective aiming to offer help for lawyers to make better use of hedges. Detailed analysis of the selected corpus has helped to arrive at the following conclusions:hedges are widely used by plaintiffs’ lawyers, defense lawyers, and witnesses in courtroom trials and all the four types of hedges (adaptors, rounders, plausibility shields, and attribution shields) are employed by them. Among the four types, plausibility shields are more frequently used than the other three types and those with personal pronouns are the most commonly used. Second, the comparison of hedges employed by the plaintiffs’lawyers and defense lawyers demonstrate that lawyers all show certain politeness to other participants (the judges and the jurors) in trials and they use plausibility shields such as "I think" and if-clause more frequently. However, defense lawyers employ more hedges than plaintiffs’ lawyers on the whole, and modal verbs and other words indicating possibility are more frequently employed in defense lawyers’ arguments. Third, hedges are used in courtroom trials to perform three positive pragmatic functions of hedges employed by lawyers:making the language more precise, showing politeness to other participants in trials, and avoiding some responsibility. These functions are beneficial for the lawyers to achieve their aims in courtroom trials.Through the analysis of hedges employed by lawyers and witnesses in courtroom trials, the thesis not only enriches the current study of hedges, but also inspires lawyers to better use hedges as a defense strategy. Therefore, lawyers are able to choose hedges accurately and deal with clarity and vagueness better in courtroom trials.