Formulations in Chinese criminal courtroom interaction

Abstract

This study investigates the interactional functions and properties of formulation sequences in Chinese criminal courtroom using the methods of Conversation Analysis. The data corpus for this study are audio recordings of five criminal trials heard in China. I show that (i) in response to opaque answers in the prior turn, the examiner tendentiously formulates the prior description to highlight the implication or inferences, for his or her pragmatic purpose; (ii) the examiner clarifies, redevelops the gist, makes something explicit that was previously implicit in the prior turn; or (iii) shifts the focus of the prior turn to make explicit a presumptive and damaging inference, in hostile examination, or to highlight favorable information in cooperative questioning. A key linguistic property of formulations is that they are preceded by turn initial discourse markers, which serves to indicate the examiner’s neutrality and credibility. Moreover, closed polar questions or tag questions in formulations are used by examiners to invite aligning and positive responses.