On the Linguistic Functions of Foregrounding Language in Lawyer's Defense Statement: A Case of Wang Chengzhong’s Defense
Keywords:
lawyer's defense, foregrounding language, linguistic functionAbstract
A lawyer's defense is a typical persuasive discourse. This article takes the defense of second instance for the case of Wang Chengzhong which aroused heated discussions in 2019 as the research subject, and analyzes its foregrounding language and its linguistic functions, to find out how the lawyer uses defense to persuade. The author finds that the foregrounding language in the lawyer's defense is primarily embodied by quantitative and qualitative deviations of language convention, and the latter is more than the former; its functions are mainly reflected in the three metafunctions proposed by Halliday, namely ideational, interpersonal and textual metafunction.References
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