Abstract
Multimodal discourse analysis offers a novel lens for the study of legal discourse. Within the closing arguments of a trial, prosecution and defense attorneys utilize various multimodal resources to present evidence, articulate opinions, and adopt stances to achieve their communicative goals. This research focuses on the closing arguments in the criminal trial concerning the death of George Floyd to analyze the multimodal representation of the closing arguments delivered by both prosecution and defense attorneys. It employs the analytical framework of the attitude system and paralinguistic typology proposed by Martin and colleagues, and uses the UAM Corpus Tool and Praat to qualitatively annotate and quantify the linguistic and paralinguistic information. The findings reveal that these attorneys employ different multimodal resources, including language and paralanguage, to convey their attitudes towards the case’s participants. This leads to the construction of competing narratives, shedding light on how justice is seen to be done.
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Research funding: The research for this paper was supported by the “Key Project of Sichuan Foreign Language Literature Research Center ‘A Study of Psycho-correction Discourse in Community Corrections under Restorative Justice from the Perspective of Individuation’(SCWY22–03).”
Appendix: Transcription conventions used
| Symbol | Meaning |
|---|---|
| (.s) | time pause in seconds |
| (..) | short untimed pause |
| _ | underline for stress |
| [] | left and right bracket for where the paralanguge start and end |
| <> | the paralanguage |
| bold | bolding for the use of attitudinal resources |
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