A Study Of Chinese Courtroom Discourse: From The Perspective Of Critical Discourse Analysis

As a specific institutional discourse, courtroom discourse reflects the asymmetry ofpower relation among the subjects in court trial. With the development of forensic linguisticsin recent years, lots of scholars have paid their attention to the language activity in court.However, systematic studies describing the discourse features, speech acts and goals of thesubjects in court are still rare. Due to the different language and law system, the experience ofother countries is valuable but cannot be copied. Therefore, on the basis of previous researchachievements, from the perspective of CDA, the thesis analyzes the microscopic linguisticdetails of courtroom discourse to describe the discourse power and discourse strategy of thesubjects in Chinese courtroom; furthermore, the thesis attempts to reveal the hidden ideologyand power relation, and provides suggestions for the judicial reform in China.Through analyzing the corpus of six court trials (three criminal trials and three civil trials)based on the tenets and methodology of CDA, it is found that the powerful subjects (the judge,the public prosecutor, the lawyer) in court always attempt to control the topic and process ofcourtroom discourse to achieve their discourse purposes due to their higher social status andbetter legal language. Nevertheless, the powerless subjects (the plaintiff, the defendant, thewitness) are able to resist such kind of discourse control by using appropriate discoursestrategy and attempt to achieve certain discourse control. Thus, the asymmetric power relationin court trial is achieved and maintained by courtroom discourse, and in turn the asymmetricpower relation influences the content and mode of courtroom discourse.In the process of the judicial reform in China, it is necessary to analyze and reveal themode and condition of Chinese courtroom through microscopic linguistic details. From theperspective of linguistics, the ideology and power relation hidden behind courtroom discoursecan be understood and known, then the suggestion for the judicial reform in China can beprovided, and ultimately the judicial justice can be achieved.