A Discourse Analysis of Criminal Courts Based on Searle’s Speech Act Theory

In criminal courts, judges and defendants use different speech acts that can be important in their success or failure in the trial process. The judge manages the court and effective defense is expected by the defendant depend on appropriate speech acts. In Searle's (1969) approach, these actions are based on five bases: representative, declarative, commissive, directive and expressive. The purpose of the research was to analyze the use of speech acts in the conversations of court officers in criminal courts in Iran from the perspective of Searle. This descriptive-analytical research method was done to compare speech acts of judges and defendants in Iranian criminal courts. The research data includes 35 short films taken from an Iranian web site, a documentary TV channel, and 20:30 program. These videos were recorded and transcribed. Then data were analyzed through descriptive and inferential statistical methods. Results showed that there was a significant difference in the speech acts between the judges and defendants. In the courts of macro-economic cases, the difference in speech acts between judges and defendants is less than the acts used in courts with other crimes such as murderer and robbery. The practical results of this research are effective in the training of judges and the fields of legal affairs. The results of the research could be used for law courses, court clerks, law officers and legislators of justices who practice in the criminal courts to observe the discourse in the conversations of the defendants.