A Study of Modal Adverbs in Chinese Lawyers’ Arguments of Defence
Abstract: Lawyers’ arguments play an important role in Chinese courtroom, for counsels present the opinions to inform and convince the judges. In order to achieve this goal, lawyers often choose some linguistic strategies, of which modal adverbs are one of the most widely used. This thesis proposes an analysis of modal adverbsin Chinese lawyers’ arguments of defence, in terms of their types and frequency of use. Statistics shows that among all the modal adverbs that appear in the collected arguments of defence, those of the assertive mood (which belongs to the category of the epistemic mood), together with those of affirmative mood and disaffirmative mood (both of which belong to the category of the declarative mood) take as much as 67.5%. The assertive mood is often associated with the affirmative or disaffirmative mood. The use of these three major types of modal adverbs help construct the modality of Chinese lawyer’s arguments of defence.
Keywords: Modal Adverbs, Chinese Lawyers’ Arguments of Defence, Types of Modal Adverbs, Frequency of Use
中国律师辩护语气副词研究
摘 要 中国法庭里辩护词起着重要的作用，律师通过辩护词来反映信息并使法官们信服。为了达到信服目的，律师经常会采用语言策略，而当中语气副词则是被广泛运用的。这篇论文旨在分析中国辩护词中的语气副词的类型及各类型的使用频率。收集的辩护词材料数据显示：语气副词属于认知语气中的确定语气与属于陈述语气中的确认语气和否认语气一共占据了67.5%。而且确定语气副词经常结合确认语气如此或否认语气副词一起使用，共同构成了律师辩护词的语气意义。
关 键 词 语气副词；中国律师辩护词；语气副词的类型；使用频率
Contents
Abstract 1
摘 要 1
1 Introduction 3
1.1 Aim of the Present Study 3
1.2 Source of Data 3
1.3 Organization of the Thesis 4
2 Literature Review 4
2.1 Modal Adverbs 4
2.2 Previous Research on Lawyers’ Arguments in the Court room 5
3 Modal Adverbs in Chinese Lawyers’ Arguments of Defence 7
3.1 Total Frequency of Use of Modal Adverbs in Chinese Lawyers’ Arguments 7
3.2 Types of Modal Adverbs in Chinese Lawyers’ Arguments 8
3.2.1 Functional Mood (功能语气) 9
3.2.2 eva luative Mood(评价语气) 11
3.2.3 Emotional Mood（情感语气） 15
3.3 Frequency of Different Types of Modal Adverbs 17
4 Conclusion 20
References 21
