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date: 10 December 2019

Abstract and Keywords

This article examines courtroom discourse in China in terms of its three components: the contextual, the interactional, and the propositional. After briefly introducing the Chinese legal culture and system, it considers courtroom questioning and interaction patterns as well as a courtroom judgment. For the analysis of the interactional component, the article uses the transcription of a criminal trial involving a charge of destruction of private property. The data for the analysis of the propositional component is a judgment from a lower court in Shanghai. Courtroom discourse in the article means criminal courtroom discourse, rather than courtroom discourse in general. Fa and Li are two core concepts in traditional Chinese legal culture, and represent the debate between the doctrines of Legalism and Confucianism. The article also introduces some of the key points about judicial proceedings in China, along with courtroom judgment (sentencing).

Keywords: China, courtroom discourse, legal culture, judicial proceedings, courtroom judgment, sentencing, Legalism, Confucianism, criminal trial, courtroom questioning

Meizhen Liao

Liao Meizhen obtained his PhD in linguistics from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. He is a professor of linguistics and associate dean of the School of Foreign Languages, Central China Normal University. His academic interests include pragmatics, forensic linguistics, and metaphor. His representative publications include “Metaphor as a Textual Strategy in English” (Text 9, 2, 1999), “A Study of Interruption in Chinese Criminal Courtroom Discourse” (Text & Talk 29-2, 2009) and A Study on Courtroom Questions, Responses and their Interaction (Law Press, Beijing, 2003). Email: meizhenliao@sohu.com; website: http://www.liaomz.com.

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