Abstract
This paper uses a Computer-Aided Text Analysis (CATA) and a Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) to investigate the language of persuasion in courtroom discourse. More specifically, the paper tries to explore the extent to which a computer-aided text analysis contributes to decoding the various persuasive strategies employed to control, defend or accuse within the framework of courtroom discourse. Two research questions are tackled in this paper: first, what are the strategies of persuasion employed in the selected data? Second, how can a computer-aided text analysis reveal these persuasive tools that influence the attitudes of recipients? By means of the adopted computer-assisted textual analysis, four CDA strategies are discussed in this study: questioning, repetition, emotive language, and justification. The paper reveals that language in courtroom discourse can be used to persuade or biased to manipulate. In both cases, a triadic relationship between language, law, and computer is emphasized.
Highlights
Within the framework of legal settings, language is a powerful tool for persuasion
This paper used a computer-aided text analysis manifested in a frequency distribution analysis and the keyword in context analysis, together with critical discourse analysis to present a linguistic investigation of the language of persuasion in courtroom discourse
This is conducted by shedding a computational linguistic light on certain strategies of persuasion used in the selected data
Summary
Within the framework of legal settings, language is a powerful tool for persuasion. Linguistic expressions are widely employed in court to defend or to accuse. Language is used and/or abused to facilitate control and to exercise power among discourse participants, be they lawyers, judges, witnesses, or otherwise This is because a trial is a linguistic activity in which a linguistic interaction is meant by language users to advocate their position and to challenge their opponents. Language in this sense is perceived as a tool of control. One can say that there is a reciprocal relationship between language and legal discourse; reciprocal in the sense that the latter is interpreted according to the linguistic interpretation of the former in discourse From this context, the relationship between language and law can be said to be worthy of linguistic research. The focus is on the persuasive power of language; that is, how it is persuasively used in such a type of discourse (i.e. legal discourse) to influence the attitudinal behavior of recipients
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