Discourse analysis of “expert theory” in trial

There is a section in the case law that deals with "expert theory." The interesting thing about these theories is that many of them are challenged and different opinions may be presented to the judge by experts about a single event. In the present article, an attempt is made to find out the cause of the existing contradictions in the opinion of experts. The main question of the research is what are the components of "expert theory" as a judicial discourse and whether the existence of contradiction in the theories of experts depends on these components. In order to answer the above questions, the authors discussed expert theories in nineteen court cases related to work accidents and car accidents in Shiraz (2018-2019). The findings confirm that in addition to the narrative and anti-narrative components, expert theory also has a "stance" component and its linguistic characteristics are evident in theories, and these personal stances cause differences in theories. Finally, the authors suggest that in formulating expert theories, more emphasis be placed on the anti-narrative aspect so that this court approach can reach a specialized decision more quickly, reduce the differences between theories, and ultimately avoid spending extra time and money.