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The Korean Association for the Study of English Language and Linguistics
[ Article ]
Korea Journal of English Language and Linguistics - Vol. 23, No. 0, pp.1154-1168
ISSN: 1598-1398 (Print) 2586-7474 (Online)
Print publication date 30 Jan 2023
Received 05 Oct 2023 Revised 09 Dec 2023 Accepted 13 Dec 2023
DOI: https://doi.org/10.15738/kjell.23..202312.1154

Intertextual Practice in Death Trials and Pragmatic Functions

Orawee Bunnag ; Krisda Chaemsaithong
(First author) Assistant Professor, Department of Thai, Faculty of Liberal Arts Mahidol University orawee.bun@mahidol.edu
(Corresponding author) Professor, Department of English Faculty of Humanities Hanyang University krisda@hanyang.ac.kr


© 2023 KASELL All rights reserved
This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons License, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

Adopting a discourse-pragmatic perspective, this study explores the intertextual practice of speech reporting in the context of capital trials, with an aim to propose a typology of the common pragmatic functions accomplished by incorporated voices. Based on the closing statements of five capital cases, the analysis reveals that, regardless of their orientation, opposing lawyers use external voices to support their stance on a death sentence. Four major functions of speech reporting are identified for this genre: narrating, contextualizing, deconstructing, and legitimizing. The reanimation of these voices not only allows lawyers to create different versions of facts and negotiate polarized perceptions of the person on trial but also contributes to making the closing speech genre highly heteroglossic and dialogic.

Keywords:

closing statement, capital trial, intertextuality, pragmatic function

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the research fund of Hanyang University(HY-202200000003533).

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