FIGHT Metaphors in Legal Discourse: A Cognitive Linguistic Approach
Date Issued
2012
Date
2012
Author(s)
Chiu, Sheng-hsiu
Abstract
This dissertation investigates the role of FIGHT metaphors in the construction of the notion of litigation. In doing so, this research not only identifies the influence of a new criminal procedural system on language use but demonstrates the relationship among concepts, ideologies, and linguistic configurations in legal discourse. It further elucidates both the positive and negative cognitive reframing effects of FIGHT metaphors on the conceptualization of litigation.
In 2003 the Republic of China (Taiwan) passed an amendment to the Code of Criminal Procedure, which moves its original criminal proceedings away from the Japanese-German justice model (inquisitorial system) to the American Criminal Justice system (adversarial system). The newly enacted law makes the litigation proceedings more adversarial in nature and tones up the warring and antagonistic atmosphere around the courtrooms. Therefore, within the theoretical and methodological framework based on the Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT), Frame Theory, Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), and Corpus Linguistics, this study examines FIGHT metaphors employed in Taiwan legal statutes and judgments and probes into the conceptual and cognitive processes underlying these FIGHT metaphors.
The analysis of this study is two-layered and incorporates the Social Actors Approach within the paradigm of Critical Discourse Analysis into the Conceptual Metaphor Theory. First, in identifying the conceptual metaphor LITIGATION IS A FIGHT and examining the interplay between language and ideology, we demonstrate that there was a clear shift in the type of discourse before and after the 2003 amendment, and reveal how ‘fight’ metaphorical lexical uses reflect litigant ideologies and further shape legal reality. The proliferation of FIGHT metaphors appearing in judiciary
judgments after enacting the revised law suggests that the concept of FIGHT to individuals engaged in litigation may have been mapped unconsciously to their thoughts and may have the potential to affect subsequent more contentious discursive behaviors in the courtroom.
Second, when applying CDA to approach the social roles of individuals engaged in litigation, procedural rights of the participants, and the distribution of power relations among the partakers, we demonstrate that FIGHT metaphors, under the same storyline of adversarial system, entail an alternative cognitive function characterizing by pursuing trial fairness and civil justice, and thus recast the concept of fight in litigation as an action to secure the public’s interests and to value the human rights. FIGHT metaphors in litigation symbolize the protection of human rights and the realization of public interests, and on the long term they guarantee the development of democracy, since all human beings are born equal and must have the same chance to display their personality within the framework of the law. As such, FIGHT metaphors are endowed a new meaning, giving promise to both victims and the accused relief and justice. This public interest-centered perspective therefore urges us to view FIGHT metaphors as a ‘must’–an indispensable device to practice equity and justice. We hence argue that FIGHT metaphors are positive as a reframing device that people rely on to conceptualize the litigation.
However, from the other cognitive perspective, FIGHT metaphors in litigation have a profoundly negative effect on individual human spirits since under the adversarial system there is an assumption that opposition is the path to truth. As such, we propose that we have to give up either-or thinking and reframe polarizing choices to find other ways to solution. We further suggest that the legal profession and any engaged individuals take a more reflective approach to their linguistic behaviors, whether oral or written, as well as to reconsider how FIGHT metaphors affect the legal culture and, by extension, the lives of individuals as part of society.
Subjects
FIGHT metaphor
critical discourse analysis
ideology
frame
legal discourse
Taiwan
SDGs
Type
thesis
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