4. Methodology .......................................... 21
4.1 Data collection................................ 21
4.2 Research tool................................ 21
5. Impoliteness of Prosecutors in Courtroom discourse............................. 22
5.1 Prosecutor’s impoliteness violating the social norm....................... 22
5.2 The analysis of Prosecutor’s legitimized impoliteness ................... 22
5. Impoliteness of Prosecutors in Courtroom discourse
5.1 Prosecutor’s impoliteness violating the social norm
Judicial etiquette refers to the attitude and manner of communication, polite principle and other rituals that judicial personnel (mainly judges and prosecutors) should abide by in judicial activities.
After the scrutiny of the data, it is not surprising to know that prosecutors’ breach of judicial regulations concerning (im)politeness is hardly spotted in the data. There is no misuse of appellation, no deprivation of litigious right of the participants in the proceedings, no insults, patronizing behavior, no abrupt interruption or commands beyond prosecutors’ authority or apparent irrational words, to some extent reflecting the general good personal quality of public prosecutors, the credibility and an efficient and authoritative image of procuratorial organs. In a word, there is no abuse of power and personal attack as impoliteness mortification used by prosecutors.
Although there are few cases of presumption of guilt identified in the data, technically speaking, they barely affect the image of prosecutors and judicial branch, because they are later proven appropriate by the evidence or the confession of other defendants.
.Tab 5.2.1 negative attitudinal expressions
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6. Conclusion
6.1 Summary
In this thesis, based on the authentic data collected from the courtroom, we tentatively make a comparatively comprehensive study on prosecutor’s impoliteness in courtroom discourse. The chapter of analysis looks at the intolerable impoliteness, realizations and features of legitimized impoliteness and the management of impoliteness through politeness and concludes three pragmatic functions of prosecutor’s impoliteness. The study draws the following conclusions in responding to the research questions.
First of all, prosecutor’s unlicensed impoliteness through the abuse of power is hardly spotted, which generally embodies prosecutor’s image of civilization and authority.
The main realizations of prosecutor’s legitimized impoliteness are negative evaluation, challenge, interruption, ordering, criticize, warning in order of frequency, which has to do with the duty that prosecutors assume. Negative evaluation takes on responsibility of making accusations on defendants and their action leading to appearance in every case.
The rest force the defendant to respond in a highly restricted and face-damaging way either supported by the power behind the discourse or by power in discourse.
Specifically speaking, challenge is worked in two fundamental ways of rhetorical question and response-seeking. In terms of the domains under Attitude System, the majority of public prosecutor’s impoliteness expresses the negative emotions, but the positive feelings like sympathy and understanding are also noticed in cooperative interruption, which makes it least impolite in the category. In contrast, the interruption of overwhelming is the most impolite and the most frequently used one of this kind. Additionally, the criticize can be combined with other strategies like challenge.
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