A Contrastive Study of Heteroglossia in the Reasoning of Criminal Judgments of Chinese Mainland and Hong Kong

Abstract

Within the framework of the Engagement System of Appraisal Theory, this thesis investigates the heteroglossia of the reasoning of criminal judgments of Chinese mainland and Hong Kong and examines their similarities and differences in the employment of heteroglossic engagement resources and underlying causes. The reasoning of 20 criminal judgments of Chinese mainland and Hong Kong produced upon second instance for the same cause of action are collected and built as two separate corpora to carry out the study. It is found that judges of both Chinese mainland and Hong Kong employ various heteroglossic engagement resources to locate position and negotiate with other voices while proceeding with reasoning. Furthermore, they share some similarities in the selection of subtypes of engagement resources, which is attributed to the fact that they hold similar communicative purposes in the reasoning of judicial judgments; while the differences can be interpreted from the distinct legal doctrines in the mainland and Hong Kong and the textual structure of the reasoning of criminal judgments.