Interpersonal Metaphor in Legal Discourse: Modality in Cross-examinations

Abstract

Abstract—Halliday’s Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) has been widely applied to different discourse analysis but the courtroom discourse analysis has seldom been touched upon. This article presents a modality analysis of the utterances between the lawyer and the witness within the interpersonal meta-function of Systemic Functional Linguistics framework. Applying the theory of interpersonal metaphors to the analysis of the discourse of cross-examination, the article evaluated the relationship between the different types, orientations and values of modality used in court and the chances of taking the powerful linguistic position and gaining the trust of the jury. The results of present study contribute to readers’ understanding of the techniques for the lawyer and the witness to examine or reply successfully.