本文是一篇语言学论文，本文以张国口故意杀人和故意破坏案的转录文本为数据，探讨了中国刑事法庭上控辩双方的叙事对抗。研究发现，在刑事审判的调查和辩论阶段，双方在构建各自的叙事时，做出了不同的语言选择，使用了不同的策略，甚至相互冲突。因此，控方和辩方之间发生了叙事冲突。在审判过程中，检察官和辩护律师适应语境，在不同的心理过程中选择不同的叙事元素和语用策略来构建自己的叙事，从而实现各自的意图。
1 Introduction
1.1 Research Background
In criminal trials, the people’s court shall examine and determine the case factsobjectively and further make judgment or mediation in accordance with legal procedures.However, just as Frank[1]claims: “since the actual facts of the case do not walk into court, buthappened outside the courtroom, and always in the past, the task of the trial court is toconstruct the past events from what are at best second-hand reports of the facts.” So duringthe trial, the “facts” are often mainly presented by the prosecution party and the defense partythrough narration, thus forming the chains of evidence through telling “stories” of thehappenings. Therefore, narration plays a very important role in criminal trials. As usual, thenarrative versions of the two sides are usually different and sometimes conflicting because oftheir different purposes. There are always narrative confrontations in trials. Just as Cochran[2]suggests that “a trial is not really a struggle between opposing lawyers but between opposingstories.” So the study on narratives in courtrooms is of great significance.
On the eve of the Spring Festival in 2018, in Shaanxi province, Zhang Koukou murderedhis neighbors Wang Zixin and his two sons Wang Xiaojun and Wang Zhengjun, and burnedWang Xiaojun’s car. While 23 years ago, Zhang Koukou’s mother Wang Xiuping wasmurdered by Wang Zhengjun, the third son of Wang Zixin. On January 8, 2019, Hanzhongintermediate people’s court tried the case concerning Zhang Koukou’s intentional homicideand vandalism and sentenced Zhang Koukou to death. Zhang Koukou was dissatisfied withthe verdict, and appealed to the higher people’s court of Shaanxi province. The court in thesecond instance of the trial upheld the death sentence. On July 17, 2019, Zhang Koukou wasexecuted.
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1.2 Research Significance
Firstly, narrative, which is a vitally important part of courtroom discourse, plays a verycrucial role in constructing chains of evidence in court trials. However, there are few domesticresearches done on narrative interactions in courtrooms. This thesis concentrates on narrativeconfrontations in criminal courts, endeavoring to contribute to the research on narrative incourtrooms in China.
Secondly, according to China’s legal system, at the final stage of criminal trials, thejudge shall make judgement based on multiple narrative versions constructed by theprosecution party and the defense party. Therefore, the judge’s efficiency and accuracy can beimproved, if the judge can grasp the main points of each narrative version. This thesispresents the narrative strategies used by the prosecution party and the defense party andfurther reveals the pragmatic functions behind their different versions of narrative, hoping toprovide some help for the judges to make fair and just judgment.At the same time, this study is intended to illustrate how narrative confrontations areformed in trials to help the public to view the relationship between the prosecution party andthe defense party more rationally so that they can express their opinions from a moreobjective, comprehensive, and dialectical perspective.
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2 Literature Review
2.1 Previous Studies on Courtroom Discourse
Forensic linguistics is the study which explores the nature and characteristics of legallanguage and investigates the relationship between language and law. Generally speaking, the1970s is a turning point of forensic linguistics. Before the 1970s, scholars gave priority tolegislation discourse and legal texts, paying more attention to the syntactic structure andstylistic features of texts. After the 1970s, scholars do not just consider legal language as anobject, but study legal language as a process, turning more attention to the int
