Dissertation committee:
Παναρέτου Ελένη, Αναπληρώτρια Καθηγήτρια Θεωρητικής Γλωσσολογίας – Κειμενογλωσσολογίας, Τομέας Γλωσσολογίας, ΕΚΠΑ
Γούτσος Διονύσιος, Καθηγητής Κειμενογλωσσολογίας, Τομέας Γλωσσολογίας, ΕΚΠΑ
Μπέλλα Σπυριδούλα, Καθηγήτρια Πραγματολογίας και Διδασκαλίας Δεύτερης Γλώσσας, Τομέας Γλωσσολογίας, ΕΚΠΑ
Μόζερ Αμαλία, Καθηγήτρια Θεωρητικής Γλωσσολογίας με έμφαση στη Σημασιολογία, Τομέας Γλωσσολογίας, ΕΚΠΑ
Κουτσουλέλου-Μίχου Σταματίνα, Αναπληρώτρια Καθηγήτρια Ανάλυσης Ομιλίας, Τομέας Γλωσσολογίας, ΕΚΠΑ
Λέγγερης Άγγελος, Επίκουρος Καθηγητής Φωνητικής-Φωνολογίας, Τομέας Γλωσσολογίας, ΕΚΠΑ
Φραγκάκη Γεωργία, Επίκουρη Καθηγήτρια Γλωσσολογίας, Τμήμα Φιλολογίας, Πανεπιστήμιο Πελοποννήσου
Summary:
In this thesis, the research of written and spoken courtroom discourse in military justice is attempted in order to identify, analyze and address the main issues that affect them.Initially, the term "written courtroom discourse" refers to the written legal texts used by the judges and court clerks of the courts, in order for the former to evaluate the incidents and then to decide justifying their verdict in each case and the latter to keep the written records and then issue the court decision. In this context, with the aim of identifying and analyzing specific cases of language weaknesses that appear in the written courtroom discourse, the texts of the main Codes (Civil, Criminal, Military Criminal, Criminal Procedure, Civil Procedure), the Constitutional law, several bills, laws, decrees and court decisions were studied. In particular, the focus was on long-term speech, the existence of lexical and grammatical heterogeneity due to the use of "mixed language", and the inconsistent application of grammatical rules, as well as "linguistically defective forms of law", i.e. ambiguities, gaps and contradictions. The aim of this research is to simplify the written legal texts that not only legal professionals come in contact with, but ordinary citizens as well. To that end, an attempt has been made to address the difficult, to understand, wording that is often responsible for incorrect interpretative approaches, thus being responsible for the unsuccessful application of the legal provisions and, therefore, the mistrial.Subsequently, the term "spoken courtroom discourse" refers to the way in which court participants, such as judicial officers, prosecution and defense witnesses, defendants, plaintiffs and their advocates, ask, argue, disagree, intervene, and generally express themselves, based on their role and the time allotted to them.Correspondingly, in order to identify the most important problems of the spoken courtroom discourse, the texts of criminal court decisions, their written records and the testimonies given before the pre-trial authorities were analyzed. In this regard, the type of questions asked, the communication function they perform, as well as their possible connection with the type of answers provided by the examinees were investigated. In addition, the verbal strategies applied by the advocates and the examinees during the evidentiary process, were researched with the aim of achieving their aspirations more effectively, emphasizing on the possibility of differentiating the way of communication approach they adopt based on the interlocutor’s identity. Finally, the verbal and non-verbal behavior strategies of the participants in cases of contradictory statements were examined, focusing on the importance of this factor for assessing the reliability of an examinee. The above research issues aim to improve the pre-trial and judicial review framework and to reduce time-consuming trial clarifications. Consequently, concrete proposals were made in order to address the language problems identified in the legal procedures that are currently used, with the purpose of reducing the future risk of communication failure in the judicial context, which is often responsible for erroneous conclusions and thus the mistrial.
Keywords:
Forensic Linguistics, Courtroom Discourse, Discourse Strategies, Courtroom Questions, Ambiguities, Contradictions, Gaps
