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Judicial jigsaw and power dynamics: a cognitive-functional analysis of Chinese courtroom discourse

  • Yuyao Sun is a research fellow at Guanghua Law School, Zhejiang University. Her research interests include legal discourse, digital law, and international law.

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    Xiaobin Zhu is a research fellow at the School of International Studies, Zhejiang University. Her research interests include forensic linguistics, language and politics, and critical discourse analysis. She has published some indexed papers in journals like Journal of Language and Politics, and Critical Discourse Studies.

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    Kanglong Liu is an Associate Professor in the Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. His research focuses on corpus-based translation studies, AI and translation, empirical approaches to translation research, and translation pedagogy. He has published extensively in the areas of corpus-based translation studies, legal translation, and translation pedagogy in refereed journals such as Target, Perspectives, Lingua, Language Sciences, System, Journal of Quantitative Linguistics and Journal of Specialised Translation.

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Published/Copyright: May 23, 2025

Abstract

In the courtroom, participants engage in a battle of power through rhetoric, where appraisal and cognitive theories serve as discursive weapons. By leveraging attitudinal resources and conceptual metaphors, participants showcase their ideologies, seeking to bolster their position in the power dynamics of the courtroom, striving to sway the balance of judicial power in their favor. By conducting a critical discourse analysis (CDA) of a self-built Chinese court trial corpus, this study proposes the Cognitive-Functional Courtroom Discourse Model, offering a fresh multidimensional theoretical perspective for analyzing courtroom discourse. It is found that the allocation and distribution of attitudinal resources in the courtroom indicates the intricate power dynamics and role assignments among court participants, among which the assessment of the admissibility, legitimacy and reliability of evidence is crucial in the interaction between different court subjects. In addition, the use of courtroom metaphors reveals the intricate nature of cases and the strategic maneuvers employed by discourse participants in the courtroom. Practically, this study offers resource references and strategic guidance for evaluating and analyzing courtroom discourse, which helps enhance the efficiency of courtroom communication and fulfill the judiciary’s function.


Corresponding author: Xiaobin Zhu, School of International Studies, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China, E-mail:

About the authors

Yuyao Sun

Yuyao Sun is a research fellow at Guanghua Law School, Zhejiang University. Her research interests include legal discourse, digital law, and international law.

Xiaobin Zhu

Xiaobin Zhu is a research fellow at the School of International Studies, Zhejiang University. Her research interests include forensic linguistics, language and politics, and critical discourse analysis. She has published some indexed papers in journals like Journal of Language and Politics, and Critical Discourse Studies.

Kanglong Liu

Kanglong Liu is an Associate Professor in the Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. His research focuses on corpus-based translation studies, AI and translation, empirical approaches to translation research, and translation pedagogy. He has published extensively in the areas of corpus-based translation studies, legal translation, and translation pedagogy in refereed journals such as Target, Perspectives, Lingua, Language Sciences, System, Journal of Quantitative Linguistics and Journal of Specialised Translation.

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Received: 2024-10-15
Accepted: 2025-03-10
Published Online: 2025-05-23
Published in Print: 2025-06-26

© 2025 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

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